Vietnam’s central highlands saw some of the heaviest fighting of the Vietnam War. Bordering on Laos and Cambodia, the highlands formed part of the Ho Chi Minh trail - a supply line of camouflaged jungle trails crossing through Laos and Cambodia, used by North Vietnam to supply their regular soldiers and guerrillas in the US-backed south. The trail was critical to the ultimate success of the North Vietnamese - including the final march to Saigon - the Ho Chi Minh Campaign of 1975. These days, travelling through the area, there’s little evidence of the war apart from the occasional small war cemetery marking local lives lost, or a monument marking one of many battles fought here. What was once the Ho Chi Minh Trail is now the Ho Chi Minh Highway, a sealed road intended to relieve Highway One, Vietnam’s main north - south corridor, of traffic. It’s a good stretch of road but doesn’t seem to see a whole lot of traffic. My recent journey from Hoi An to Kontum took me through parts of central Vietnam I’ve never previously visited. One place name that was very evocative was Dak To - north of Kontum. When I first came to Vietnam I read most of the major books on the history of the war and Dak To frequently came up in accounts of battle. I’ve often wondered about visiting. Many years ago I met Australian Victoria Cross recipient Keith Payne. Few Australians served in this area of Vietnam but Payne was decorated for heroism in a battle near Dak To in 1969. John Vann, the subject of Neil Sheehan’s masterpiece about the Vietnam War, A Bright Shining Lie, died around Kontum in 1972, when his chopper crashed. As we approached Kontum, just outside Dak To, our driver Mr Dung pointed out the Phoenix aka. Tan Canh airstrip, to our right. I never miss an opportunity for a wander in one of these places so we stopped for a look. Given it must be around 50 years old, the airstrip was in remarkably good shape. Around the airstrip, local minority women were planting cassava trees. We received a warm welcome - including from the woman pictured. They told us they are paid around $6.50 a day to work for a local landowner - the current owner of the former airstrip. This airstrip started its days as a special forces base, then became involved in reconnaissance. As the war intensified, its role expanded. It gets plenty of mentions in A Bright Shining Lie. The locals now use the old airstrip for drying cassava root and anything else they grow around it. There’s always something compelling about visiting former battlegrounds. Four decades later in Vietnam, the idea that tens of thousands of young Americans, a much smaller number of Australians and others fought alongside and against young Vietnamese in these incredibly remote places is almost incomprehensible. That so many died here is chilling. And now, such contested land is so unremarkable. There were thousands of foreigners here back then. But it was pretty clear during our brief stop that very few pass through any more.
