Evidence of War

Traveling through Vietnam with three Vietnam vets, I could not escape vestiges of the war if I wanted to. The whole purpose of our trip is to do some work in conjunction with Libraries of Vietnam Project, which is a group a friend of my father's started a decade ago. They build libraries in rural villages near the local school. My father says that he is still fighting the war, but with education instead of violence.
In Hanoi, the capital, which was heavily bombed and then reconstructed, is currently being taken over by modern progress. However, there are a few monuments to remind everyone of Vietnam's triumph over the "imperialist U.S," including a huge war museum which to our misfortune is not open on Mondays and that is when we had planned to visit. However, I think we managed to see the rest of them.
This is Ho Chi Minh's mosoleum. Like all other communist leaders, he is frozen and well preserved. I took these pictures on a sunset tour of Hanoi on the back of a scooter.

This is the monument dedicated to the crash landing of Senator John McCain in a lake in the middle of the city.

The central prison build by the French in the early 20th century to torture and kill Vietnamese and then used by the Vietnamese to do the same to Americans including John McCain.

A propaganda picture of US POWs having Christmas dinner.

This sheet of paper asks for help and safety in five languages.

This is a picture of John McCain being pulled out of the river .

John McCain returned to the prison where he was tortured in 2000.

And a tiny monument deep in side an urban neighborhood that you'd have to know about to find: wreckage of a B52 bomber