"Revolutionary Road"
The old Ho Chi Minh Trail!!

Adapted from: Smithsonian, March 2008. By David Lamb and photographer Mark Leong.

You know, guys, there's a lot of us with vivid memories of the 3rd. Regiment, 2nd PAVN/NVA Division, from our time spent atop Nui Loc Son / Hill 185, as Marines of old Fox Two / One, right?

Last day or two of January, 1967 up to maybe early May, of 1967?

For those of us in this category of Old Fox Two / One Marines, the end of this article is a real wowser, if yours truly says so himself!

Read on ....

Page 66:

"April 1975 and Saigon's last days flashed to mind.

"Thirty - two years ago, I had spread out a map on the bed in my hotel near South Vietnam's parliament.

"Each night I had marked the advancing locations of North Vietnam's 12 divisions as they swept down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the city's doorstep.

"The end of the war was at hand and it would come amid chaos but with surprisingly little bloodshed."

Humm...! Naw, he's right, to be sure.

Because as the French writer, Todd, points out in his book Cruel April, the whosesale executions started a bit later...

And, now comes a living, breathing two - legged ghost from out of Old Fox Two / One's past, and our nemesis, the tough fighting bo - doi of the Second NVA / PAVN Division!

"I was 12 miles north of Saigon with the 2nd Division before the final advance, said Tran Dau, a former North Vietnamse officer living in Ho Chi Minh City.

"We could see the lights of the city at night.

"When we came in, I was surprised how modern and prosperous it was.

"We had been in the forests so long that anyplae with pavement would have seemed like Paris.

"Dau knew how harsh Hanoi had been toward the South in the nightmarish 15 years following reunification.

"Southerners by the hundreds of thousands were sent were sent to [ha, ha, HA!] re - education camps or economic zones and forced to surrender their property and swallow rigid communist ideology.

"Hanoi's mismanagement brought near - famine, international isolation and poverty to all but the Communist Party elite.

"In 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia, overthrowing the regime of dictator and mass murderer Pol Pot, then, in 1979, fought off invading Chinese troops in a month - long border war.

"Vietnam stayed in Cambodia until 1989.

"The former [NVA/PAVN] colonel shook his head at the memory of what many Vietnamses call the Dark Years.

"Did he encounter any animosity as a victorious northern soldier who had taken up residency in the defeated South?

"He paused and shook his head.

"People in Saigon don't care anymore if their neighbor fought for the South or the North, he said.

"It's just a matter of history."

To be honest with you, ex - colonel comrade, I'd say you've a pretty good point, at that!!

Sho'nuff!!