Pascal and I visited some of the most famous battlefields of the Vietnam War, and one of the most surprising things is that it looks like it never happened. If not for the museums and military equipment brought over, we would have been hard pressed to distinguish between, say, Hamburger Hill or any other lush green hill so abundant in the country. Like drawing a line in the sand, the passage of time slowly erases the physical evidence until all that is left are the stories and the memories.
There were some guest books at the museum of the Khe Sanh battlefield, where these pictures were taken. Some of the comments left by returning Vietnam vets were very, very moving. Over 68,000 Americans lost their lives in their attempt to halt the spread of Communism in southeast Asia, and while the battle in Vietnam was ultimately lost, with the Communist regimes subsequently slaughtering over 2 million innocent civilians in the region, their sacrifice will never be forgotten.
