My Hopes and Expectations for the January 2003
Experiential Travel Course to Viet Nam
Over thirty-three years ago, I was a graduate student at the University of Florida studying biochemistry. I had recently graduated with my B.S. degree from a college not unlike Maryville College and was planning to do biomedical research. I knew that the United States was fighting a war in Southeast Asia but I did not feel very close to that conflict. In April of 1969, I was drafted into the United States Army, completed basic training, and was sent to the Defense Language Institute in El Paso Texas for a 40-week intensive study course in the Vietnamese language. This course was to prepare me for a military assignment as an interpreter, translator, or interrogator with the U.S. Army. During the course of those 40 weeks and my subsequent assignment to Long Binh Army Base outside Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) I read Vietnamese history, studied the culture and literature as well as someone could while in the Army. When Dr. Shiba started organizing this course I jumped at the chance to relearn the language and return to Vietnam in peace time to see how the nation has changed following a series of wars that lasted almost 45 years.
During
my tenure at Maryville College, I taught two J-term experiential courses on the
Vietnam War and the social and historical context within which it was fought.
These courses led me to teach a unit in Penny Piper’s Modern U.S. History class
at Maryville High School. This past fall I was joined in this “teach-in” by my
wife, Pam, who I met in Vietnam and to whom I proposed over thirty years ago at
the Saigon Zoo.
I
am anxiously looking forward to this trip, not to bury old wounds, but to
revisit the culture as a U.S. citizen not a U.S. soldier. I also
approach this travel with abject fear that the aural/ oral skills I once had in
the language will not be able to be retrieved and dredged up in my old brain.
At one time, after language school, I passed the Government Service Language
Exam as a native speaker. Now my sights are set to simply be able to find the
hotel, find the restroom, and, if lucky, order from a menu.
I
share Kathie’s excitement in anticipating this trip. I know we will have
opportunities to visit modern Vietnam and to see the panorama of 2000 years of
Vietnamese history and culture. If you have read this rambling invitation and
explanation this far, I urge you to go further and come and talk with Dr. Shiba
or with me and join us on this adventure. I know, from my past experience and study,
that you will see part of the world that is very different from your
personal frame of reference.
April
15, 2002