The Hanoi Hilton
President Trump is in Hanoi meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jung Un. I’m not sure what hotel he is staying at and I’m sure Hilton would not place a hotel in Hanoi given the historical significance of the prison with the moniker Hanoi Hilton. What I am sure of is that he has no business being there at all. The reasons for this are known to most Americans whether they agree with my assessment or not. We can argue at length about his foreign affairs qualifications and his handling specifically of the North Korean issues. But the biggest reasons for this inappropriate moment has more to do with history. President Trump did the “smart” thing in the 60’s in the face of the draft. He did whatever it took to get out of going into the army and being sent to Vietnam. It would be hypocritical of me to call him out on that in and of itself. I was certainly part of that generation that felt Vietnam was an illegal war. Had I been as old as Trump, I too might have gotten something akin to a bone spur excuse to get a military deferment. But here’s the thing, I may not have wanted to go to Vietnam, but I have always been very thankful to those who did enlist or got drafted and had to go to Vietnam. I never faced the issue of scrambling to avoid the draft, but I surely never would have denigrated those who chose to go (willingly or reluctantly). One of my favorite things is to say “thank you for your service” to any U.S. serviceperson.
Vietnam dredges up many old and confusing memories for people of a certain age. We’ve all heard the jokes like how many Vietnam Vets does it take to screw in a lightbulb. No, you wouldn’t know, would you, because you weren’t there, man! We’ve all seen the movies from Platoon to The Deer Hunter to Full Metal Jacket to Forrest Gump and even to the Rambo series. It is a bit of a fascination to those of us who lived through the era whether we were there, at risk or going there or only imagined that we were close to having to deal with the possibility of going there. I still tear-up when I hear the song Green Beret. Put silver wings on my son’s chest. Make him one of American’s best. That is fundamentally how I view those who went to Vietnam. They were America’s best. I know we do not consider Vietnam Vets as part of the Great Generation. For some reason they do not enjoy the stalwart reputation that those who shipped off to Normandy or Iwo Jima do. I guess that is mostly the difference of a war with wholehearted support and a police action with half-hearted debate.
As my wife and I consider places to travel, everyone says that we should not miss going to Vietnam and Cambodia (I guess Laos is in that mix too or is it off the radar now as it was back then?). I can’t really explain it, but I have no interest. The temples of Angkor Wat hold some interest, but not enough to overcome the distinct and strong lack of interest in going to a country and area that I grew up trying not to think about. Taking a cruise up the Mekong Delta just doesn’t feel right to me. I went to Normandy and saw all the landing beaches. I’ve been to Japan and seen some of the traces of WWII. I’ve even been to Korea, so I guess I’ve been OK with that police action history. But not Vietnam. I take a pass and feel I can live my life in fullness without that experience.
Generational cohorts are tricky things. We all know about Baby Boomers and Millennials, but who exactly qualifies as a Generation X or Generation Y person? And who comes after Millennials? I know I can easily Google the answer, but you get my point. Life moves on and generations fly past our eyes like leaves in the wind. Every generation has its wounds. My wounds extend to Vietnam. Truth be told, I was never in harm’s way about being drafted and sent to Vietnam. Mine was the last year for which selective service birthday numbers were selected. My number was 353. Not bad. No numbers were drafted or even called for physicals during my year. The year ahead of mine had people called up for physicals, but no one was drafted. So I believe those born in 1952 were the last cohort actually drafted. Most of the Vietnam protests were over by my start of college in 1971. The Paris Peace accord was signed in January, 1973 even though the final fall of Saigon only came about in April, 1975.
The biggest impact of Vietnam on my life was the radical takeover of the Engineering Library in early 1972 by the Giap-Cabral Movement (I was a Freshman engineer). General Giap was the great strategic military man of Ho Chi Minh’s reign. As best I can figure, Amilcar Cabral was a pal of Fidel Castro’s who got Cuba into the shit in Guinea-Bissau. So these revolutionaries apparently had a beef with imperialistic engineers and their study habits. I’m not sure it did much to my study habits, but there was the night spent trying to get home from the Collegetown pizzeria while we dodged tear gas canisters. Does that make me a war protester? Actually, I think it makes me no more than a pizza lover.
But let’s get back to Hanoi in the here and now. I guess President Trump doesn’t mind the idea of going to Vietnam 50 years late, as Jimmy Fallon put it. John McCain visited the Hanoi Hilton to exorcize his personal demons from his six year stay at that inhospitable hostel. Trump best stick to the Marriott, where he and his staff can rest assured that it’s a damn site more comfortable than Kim Jong Un’s digs over at the Melia, where a bunch of the U.S. press corps is billeted. The biggest problem Trump has in Hanoi is probably trying to keep up with the Cohen testimony back on the hill. I don’t consider his nuclear negotiations problematic because he himself does not. He will simply do whatever he and Mr. Putin think will stir things up the most. I don’t want to say too much about Trump’s foreign policy because to do so requires me to suspend disbelief that this nonsense can even be happening.
Imagine the irony. Our American President sidled up with the world’s most notorious despot, who’s regime is so bad that human rights don’t even enter the equation. While declaring love for this tin dictator, in the capital of this infamous Chinese satellite state where 58,000 Americans died, this draft dodger who regularly denigrates service people for protecting us, is declaring himself the protector of the free world. His Veep is off on the Venezuelan border providing Mr. Maduro’s sharpshooters a moving target as the Trump policy of instigating a Hemispheric war begins to blossom. What Trump really is, is the great dismantler of liberal democracy. Allies mean nothing, right and wrong spin freely through the universe for him, the norms of civility are chump bait, everything translates to money…except he couldn’t make a cogent macroeconomic argument to save his failing empire. His going after Venezuela’s oil reserves show’s how out of step he is with our times. He should be sponsoring renewable energy technology like Israel and China have done for years, but he’s playing 1970’s ball in the oil fields. Even his pal MBS in Saudi Arabia knows better.
I have a plan. Give Trump the Congressional Medal of Honor with Oak Leaf Clusters. Give him the Nobel Peace Prize for a record four years in a row. Give him a pension of $10 million/month for life and free use of Air Force One. Give him a get-out-of-jail-free card for life. Do whatever it takes to convince him to leave office. We need him out of Hanoi, Pyongyang, Tehran, Paris and Helsinki. I am now on a Whatever it Takes campaign. I just wish I could convince Tom Steyer that this is more important than impeachment.