Life is a Trip (7 page)

You can also go on the trail of the war, as I did. The infamous Hanoi Hilton prison is open for visits. There’s a plaque marking the spot where John McCain’s plane went down, and the wreckage of a B-52 bomber is still in Huu Tiep Lake in Hanoi. You can learn about what they refer to as “the American War” at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), and crawl through the claustr
o
phobia-inducing tunnels at Cu Chi, where the fighters from the north conduc
t
ed their guerrilla war against the American troops. They have even accommodated American visitors by enlarging the tunnels because the Vietnamese were and are so much smaller and thinner.

These tunnels were the only place I saw Cuong express strong emotion about the American War.

“I will not go inside with you,” he said adamantly. “No way.”

He had spent weeks in the earthen warrens, sharing space with rodents, star
v
ing, his body and soul gasping for air and light. He said he felt like a rat. Down at the third level of the caves, it was like Hades. “When you came out,” he said, “it was like returning from Hell.”

“Aren’t you angry, Cuong, that our war forced you to live there?”

“Nope!” Cuong insisted. “But it’s not a place I would ever want to visit again!”

And then he went on to describe a day when he was so famished he ran out of hiding and into a river where, with his bare hands, he grabbed two fish that had been killed or stunned as a result of bom
b
ing. At that moment, he was spotted by the U.S. military.

“The shells went off in front of me,” Cuong said, “and I could hear whizzing and shredding. I dove underwater. I held my breath, waiting.”

“What happened next?” I prodded him, totally caught up in his narrative. 

“We knew the pattern of the enemy fire. I knew they would move thirty yards away, and, if I could just keep holding my breath, I would be safe.”

“Sounds like a close call.”

“Very,” Cuong said, nodding. “And then it was over. They had moved on. I came up from the water and two buddies of mine stood there looking at me. They started to laugh. I had just escaped death, and why were they amused? Because after all of that, I emerged with the two fish still clutched in my hands. That’s how hungry I was.”

“Were you thinking about death all the time?” I asked Cuong.

“I read Epicurious,” he said, and “one sentence really struck me. I made it my own. It was: ‘Why worry about death?’ When you are alive, it doesn’t come. When it comes, you aren’t conscious. So why worry about it? I told this to my war friends and it helped a lot when we were waiting for the enemy on the front.”

“How have you managed to put the American War behind you?”
I asked everyone I met. The answer was always the same. The Vie
t
namese are so happy not to be at war or under foreign occupation that they are concentrating on the present, on making money, and bettering themselves. Their focus is on the now and the future. The war repr
e
sents the past.

“Do you mean you really have no resentment against us?” I asked again and again.

“No,” was the answer. “You are forgiven.”

It was an enormous relief to know that Vietnam has survived our war and is thriving. It was reassuring to learn that life has moved on, and even when a country is bombed, defoliated, and destroyed, it can come back with great vigor. I was humbled by a people who have su
f
fered so much and have chosen forgiveness over fury.

One night, in a park in Hanoi, I met a silver-haired man dressed in beige pants, sandals, and a white, short-sleeve shirt. His grace suggested someone who had practiced Tai Chi for decades. In fact, he had been a Viet Cong soldier and then did menial labor most of his life. He spoke with the wisdom of a philosopher. “I was eaten up by anger when I was younger,” he said. “So I spent many years meditating and thinking about anger and whom I was angry at. Were the soldiers who came here to fight any different from me? I didn’t want to go to war. But, once I was forced to, I did whatever I had to do in order to su
r
vive. There was no difference between the American soldiers and me. We were both caught up in a situation and circumstances. When I realized that, I could give up my anger. Now, I think of those soldiers with compassion.”

My guide, Cuong, chimed in. “I didn’t want to go to war either. What did I know or care about Lenin and socialism at age eighteen? I wanted to stay home and play rock ’n’ roll songs on my guitar. I loved the Beatles. I sang ‘Let It Be.’ I lived in the jungle, on the verge of starvation for five years with no news of my family. In my squad of twelve, only two of us survived. I have a scar from a grenade on my scalp. My leg was wounded. It wasn’t the fault of the soldiers. Life is good now. Forget the past—I live in the present. After what I went through, I never take anything for granted. I appreciate everything, every little thing and each moment. I forgave the soldiers a long time ago.”

Only once, in a remote Black Hmong village in the mountains in the north of Vietnam, did someone ask me a question about the Ame
r
ican War. I was sitting on a bamboo floor, in a house on stilts, laug
h
ing with a woman named Mai and her family. Mai was a lithe woman who wore her hair in a knot—called a
tang cau—
on the left side of her head, which is the tradition for married women. Her children giggled as they rolled up my shirt sleeves and the legs of my pants to stare at my white skin. Mai chided them gently, but when she saw that I wasn’t offended, she chuckled too. She served me tea, and, after I had inquired about her tribe and trad
i
tions, I invited her to ask me any questions she wished. Mai hesitated for a moment and looked over at a rifle which hung on the wall, a relic of the war in which her father had fought against the Americans. Then she asked, in a barely audible voice, “Why did the Americans come to my country during the war?”

My mind wandered to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen, and I felt the same anger I had felt during the war in Vietnam. As we talked and exchanged ideas in a house on stilts, how many innocent civilians were dying? How many families were being wrecked and futures cut short in a burst of gunfire?

One day, when the insanity has stopped, when Iraq and Afghanistan finally know peace and have been rebuilt, will they, too, thrive? Will we be taking trips to Baghdad, Kabul, and Islamabad the way we now go to Ho Chi Minh City and H
a
noi to see remnants and reminders of the war? Will guns hang on walls as decor
a
tive relics? Most i
m
portant, will they be able to forgive us?

The fact that the Vietnamese can forgive Americans caused me to look at m
y
self and how I feel about people who have hurt or offended me. There is one wo
m
an, an angry, misguided person, who, in the past, slandered me both privately and publicly, in writing. She caused a lot of pain and distress in my life. And, from what I heard, she was at it again.

I thought about retribution and how I could get back at her. I put my hands on my keyboard, ready to spew out a nasty, angry letter. I wanted to tell her that she was a blight on the face of the universe, a ball of negativity, a self-righteous, racist liar. Furthermore, that she used up too much air on the planet and created divisiv
e
ness everywhere she went. But before doing it, I stopped for a moment to co
n
sider my actions. And in an instant I realized that I didn’t have to write the letter. In fact, I didn’t need to do anything at all.

I got up and walked away from my computer. I understood that I could spend a lifetime harboring anger and resentment, or I could a
c
cept what happened to me and move on. It felt good to be in the pr
e
sent. It felt good not to focus on the past. It felt right to unplug from past hurts and bitterness. My trip to Vietnam inspired me and remin
d
ed me of that.

T
here are plenty of things I am scared of,
but people usually don’t intim
i
date me. As I travel the world, I’ve been fortunate to meet with ministers and my
s
tics, rock stars, scientists, and shamans. I was never really nervous until the ausp
i
cious day when I was invited to a private audience with the High Priest of the a
n
cient Israelite Samaritans. It was as though someone had opened the pages of the Torah or Hebrew Bible and invited me to step inside.

The Samaritans are northern Israelites whose deep tribal ancestry goes back to Joseph, the son of forefather Jacob and great grandson of Abraham. Today, more than 3,800 years later, they still pray at the site where Joseph’s bones are said to be buried. The first High Priest was Aaron, the brother of Moses. The current High Priest, Elazar B. Tsedaka, traces his lineage back through 131 High Priests to Itamar, the second son of Aaron. Abraham. Joseph. Jacob. Moses. Aaron. You can begin to understand why I was a little skittish about an aud
i
ence with a man of such prestige and pedigree.

Roughly half of the 729 Samaritans in the world live in Holon, a town south of Tel Aviv, and the other half live on the West Bank on
Har Gerizim
, the holy Mountain of Blessings mentioned in the H
e
brew Bible. And there I was, standing on their mountain, heading toward the gate of the High Priest’s house. Like all S
a
maritans, he had verses from the Torah inscribed outside his dwelling.

I was welcomed into a lavish Oriental-style living room. Moments later, the bearded High Priest entered, wearing a gray robe and red turban. A dignified man in his early eighties, he was accompanied by his family and his deputy High Priest, Aaron B. Ab-Hisda. He beckoned for me to sit next to him. The audience had b
e
gun.

“What can I do for you?” he inquired.

“You have an ancient tradition of Biblical interpretation and I wonder if I can ask a few questions,” I said cautiously.

When he nodded, I dove in.

“I know the Samaritans consider Moses to be the greatest prophet who ever lived, but how did he convince the recalcitrant Israelites of his importance?” I asked.

“Moses could do many things,” the High Priest explained. “He put his hand i
n
side his shirt, and when he pulled it out, the hand had lepr
o
sy. Then he stuck it into his shirt again, and it came out clean.”

“What about the five Hebrew words Moses used to cure his sister Miriam of leprosy?” I asked excitedly. “I’ve thought about those words many, many times. Would you agree they can be used for hea
l
ing?”

He nodded.

“And is it true that the words mean ‘Please, God, heal her, please,’ but they can be used to heal a man as well?”

“Yes,” he replied. “The words of the Torah cannot be changed. So they’re used for men as well as women. Also, healing takes place in the soul, which is feminine. For those reasons, the words pertain to men as well as women.”

High Priest Elazar proceeded to give me a rather complex numerological ana
l
ysis of the five words. Apparently, he had also thought about Moses’s healing words many, many times. It created a bond between us. The High Priest thanked me for asking such meaningful questions. He became less formal. Friendly, actua
l
ly. I pinched myself. There I was, on chatty terms with the revered icon.