Veterans' Day (and, my interview with Donald Rumsfeld...)
...back in 1993.
By my local China time it is now the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. This is November 11, which means variously, Remembrance Day, Armistice Day, or Poppy Day among countries on the Allied side of World War I, and of course Veterans' Day in the United States.
Originally this was a moment for looking backwards, to honor those who had served in the Great War and mourn those who had died. Its retrospective purpose remains. But for Americans right now it should also be a moment to honor the men and women who continue to serve and sacrifice and be injured and die -- and to reflect on the fact that, for the first time in our modern history, they do so with absolutely no shared sacrifice or service from the public at large. Everyone knows this and avoids thinking much about it. Today it's worth at least remembering.
Also it is worth looking at several articles the Atlantic has brought up from the archives and made available free, for now. They're about Vietnam, not Iraq or Afghanistan (or Iran), but several are significant in their own right in addition to shedding indirect light on our current and continuing wars. Let me emphasize two:
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Wolfowitz = McNamara, chapter 402
From John Cassidy's (very good) profile of Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank, in the New Yorker:
Wolfowitz refused to talk about Iraq specifically, but he told me that he still believes in the vision of a moderate, democratic Middle East.
Jeez louise. How much inner peace does it suggest about a person -- the most famed intellectual in the Bush administration -- if he refuses to talk about the event for which he will always be principally known? ("John Hinckley refused to talk about shooting President Reagan specifically, but he told me that he still believes in his vision of a happy future with Jodie Foster.")
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Archival note: M-16 article
Magazine articles published before the early 1990s are available digitally in only hit-or-miss fashion. Republication rights were still being worked out then; Nexis coverage from that time is erratic; some material has been scanned in and much has not. I am aware of this spotty coverage mainly as it affects two Atlantic articles I did in this period: "A Damaged Culture," about the Philippines; and "M-16: A Bureaucratic Horror Story," about how internal bureaucratic squabbling left American troops in Vietnam with defective, jam-prone weapons. I frequently receive requests for copies of these articles.
I have finally found, and earlier posted, a digital version of the Philippine article, which appeared in expanded form in Looking at the Sun. I am not aware of a digital version of the M-16 article. For those who ask (and I write this because I've gotten another round of requests), it too appeared in expanded book form, in National Defense. That book was published in 1981 and has recently gone out of print, but used copies are easily and cheaply available on Amazon. That is where to look if you are interested.
Vietnam as resort
Domestic travel within Vietnam is hard, slow, inconvenient, and, well, hard. It is not as difficult as it was twenty years ago (to say nothing of eras before that), but it still is a chore. Yesterday's edition of the Viet Nam News contained the mournful disclosure that international visits to the country had risen only 3 per cent during 2006, even though this was the country's National Year of Tourism.
But simply as landscape much of the country is beautiful. Completely apart from its historic, political, and now economic interest, sooner or later it will be a sought-after resort site. During the 1980s, the tourists we saw at the beaches were Bulgarians, Russians, and East Germans. Now they're mainly Europeans -- and here are two places they, and we, found worth the effort to reach:
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Dog: the other white meat
No kidding: click on the link below only if you would like to see pictures of the Hanoi central market on Christmas day, with fresh dog meat arrayed for holiday eating.
Not a joke.
Here is the link.
In any case, Happy New Year!
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Blind Into Baghdad: America's War In Iraq
Free Flight: Inventing the Future of Travel
Breaking the News
Looking at the Sun
