More than 50 years after Vietnam The war caught the attention in the world, the battlefields in which the countless lives were lost, became fragrant pilgrims for veterans and tourists.
Locations like Hamburger Hill, Hue, Dolina Ia Drang, and Khe Sanh, sometimes synonymous with conflict and abolished in the analysis of history, now draw visitors who want to understand first-hand war.
For Us Veteran Army Paul Hazelton, returning to Vietnam, only shy from 80. Birthday was a time trip. The revision of the place that served as a young gratus, including a shade, the former Phu Bai fight Base and Dan, evoked Stark Coarst between the landscapes that remembered and becomes a lively Nation Vietnam.
“It was a war zone when I was here earlier,” Mr. Hazelton reflected, walking with his wife through the Museum of War Residues in Ho Chi Minh CityEarlier Saigon. City, once a hub of military activity, now pulses with trade and industry.
“Everywhere you left … He was occupied by the territory with our army, now you only see the hustle and bustle and industry and that is extraordinary,” he said.
Mr. Hazelton felt a wider shift in the relationship between the United States and Vietnam. Decade after the end of the war, two nations falsified a new path based on trade and cooperation.
“I’m glad we’re now trading and friendly with Vietnam,” m. Hazelton, adding: “I think both sides benefit from it.”
The Vietnam War with the United States lasted for almost 20 years, from November 1955. until April 1975, and resulted in the death of more than 58,000 Americans and several times that number of Vietnamese.
For Vietnam, he began almost immediately after almost a decade-long struggle for the ejection of colonial French, who supported Washingtonwhich culminated the deciding defeat of the French forces in Dien Bien Phu in 1954. years.
The end of the French Indochina meant great changes in the region, including the partitioning Vietnam in the Communist North Vietnam under Ho Si Mina, and at the American Alignment of South Vietnam.
This year means 50. Anniversary of the fall of Saigon with northern Vietnamese and Viet Cong Guerrilla troops and 30. anniversary of re-establishing diplomatic relations between the United States and Vietnam.
Read more: The best holiday destinations in Vietnam – when to travel and where to stay
Tourism quickly recovered from the caving pandemic and is now a critical driver of Vietnamese growth, the fastest in the region, which makes up about one in the country.
Vietnam had more than 17.5 million foreign visitors in 2024. year, near the record 18 million fortified 2019. years before the pandemic.
The maturities of the war attracts about 500,000 visitors per year, two thirds of whom are foreigners. His exhibits focus on American war crimes and crimes like my massacre and devastating effects Orange agentdeffoiled widely used during the war.
The United States should have opened the first exhibition in the museum, detailed Washington extensive efforts on the rehabilitation of war damage, but indefinitely is on hold after the Trump administration that mitigated foreign help.
Other War Pages in Saigon, which was the capital of South Vietnam, the South Vietnamese Palace for the Independence of the President to which North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the gates and registration of the magazine that served foils for their foils for credible information.
On the northern outskirts of the city are Tunnels Cu Chi, Underground Warren that uses Viet Cong Guerrilli will avoid discovering American planes and patrols, which attracts about 1.5 million people every year.
Today, visitors can climb and crawl through some of the narrow passages and encounter firears for war era such as a machine guns AK-47, and M-60-known machine guns as “pigs” of American troops for its great size and high fire.
“I can understand a little better as the war happened, as Vietnamese people managed to fight and protect themselves,” said Italian tourist Theo Buono after he visited the place in his group from the tour.
Former North Vietnam artillery Lu Van Duc remember the fight in the first hand, but his visit to the Tunnel Cu Chi with a group of other veterans gave the opportunity to see how their allies with Viet Cong lived and fought.
“I was so moved to visit the old battlefields – it was my last dying desire to be able to relive those strenuous but celebrities together with my friends,” said 78-year-old.
“This such relics must be preserved so that the following generations will know about its history, about victories due to many stronger enemies.”
The former demilitarized zone in which the country was divided between north and south in the Quang three province, saw the hardest fights during the war, and pulled out more than 3 million visitors 2024. Years.
On the north side of the DMZ, visitors can walk through the tunnel in the Labyrinthine Vinh Moc tunnel, where civilians were removed from bombs that are now invested in the effort to disrupt the stocks of Northern Vietnamese.
Tunnels, together with a memorial museum on the border, can be reached on a day trip from the shade, which usually involves stopping in the former Khe Sanh fighting basis, the locality of the fierce battle of 1968. in which both sides claimed victory.
Today, Khe Sanh has a small museum and some of the original fortifications, together with tanks, helicopters and other equipment left by US forces after withdrawal.
She herself was a scene of a big battle during the Aunt 1968 offensive. Years, one of the longest and most intense war. Today, the city’s state citizens and the Imperial city, the UNESCO site on the north coast of the perfume River, still has signs of fierce fighting, but has been largely renovated. West of a hue, a little of the beaten track near the border with Laos, is Hamburger Hill, a scene of the big battle of 1969. Years.
About 500km (300 miles) to southwest near Cambodia The border is IA Drang Valley, where the first major engagement between U.S. and North Vietnamese forces fights in 1965. years.
Borbe u Severnom Vijetnamu bila je prvenstveno vazduhoplovstvo, a danas muzej Hoa lo lo lo lo lo lo lo lo lo lo.
Sardonically called “Hanoi Hilton “Inmatias, former French prison in Hanoi It was used to hold American prisoners, primarily the pilots shot during the bombing. His most famous resident was the late senator John McCain After he was shot in 1967. years.
“It was a kind of eerie, but fascinating at the same time,” said Olivia Wilson, a 28-year-old from New York, after a recent visit.
“It’s an alternative perspective of war.”