Name that movie....anyone? anyone? Should be pretty easy since that phrase is the title of the film starring none other than funny man Robin Williams. If you haven't seen it I recommend you check it out from your local library and/or pirate the DVD, ya know, whatevers easiest for you. So far I've spent about 4 days here in Vietnam, one in Chao Doc and now Ho Chi Minh City, also known as Saigon. Things are a bit different here...the food has more of a Chinese influence, the pace in Saigon is rapido, and although nice, some of the people seem a bit dodgy at times. Outside of Saigon the people are great, but here, for the first time ever, I just don't feel as safe.

"Good Morning Vietnam" is a movie loosely based around the Vietnam War in the 1960's concerning the US and the Vietcong. Today I was lucky enough to see some of the remnants of the war firsthand at the infamous Cu Chi tunnels. If you're ever in Saigon or Vietnam for that matter, you have to go here. Not only did I get to shoot an AK47 (so cool! and I don't even care for guns) and physically crawl through some of the original tunnels built by the guerrilla Vietcong, but I got to witness firsthand one of the sites of the world that has caused so much controversy. I had so many thoughts running through my head while I was there...what was my uncle going through? How the hell did he survive? Why don't the Vietnamese hate us? They were so smart, underground tunnels, genius!, would I myself been a war protester? (probably), and just, wow.

And then I quickly realized that I don't actually know that much about the Vietnam war. Which then I thought was quite silly...I know more about the world wars and even the war of 1812 than I do about a war that happened in America's relatively recent past...why is that? The only thing I really remember learning about the Vietnam war is that it was highly protested (insert lovely smelling hippies here) and our soldiers fought against the quick and agile Vietcong after previously giving them weapons, etc. That's really about it. How could I know more about a war that happened almost 200 years ago than a war that has affected my friends and family directly?

It's times like these that reaffirm my belief that we can't always rely on the education system in the US to teach us what we really need to know or at least want to know. It's like that everywhere. Where you're taught affects what you're taught. Not to mention the amount of time teachers are allotted to teach certain subjects, etc.

I'm on a mission to learn the ins and outs of the Vietnam war via a reasonably priced book found around here, or maybe the internet, who knows. If you've got time, read a wikipedia page or something like that, at least its a start.