Goodbye Vietnam

Well, we pulled anchor a little after eleven this morning after a small closing ceremony on the pier. Went through the receiving line shaking hands with all the dignitaries. We had to stand for a group photo with all of the dignitaries from both sides, me being in that group reminds me of Forrest Gump where you see him in all of these historical photos. That's about how I felt, like who me??? Just to be there and witness the event was incredible enough. The coastline as we were leaving the bay was absolutely beautiful with these undeveloped beaches, rocky islands jutting up off the shore and the colorful fishing boats going by. I can see coming back here. I know we got to see the nice side and there's still a lack of freedom so all is not roses but I really feel we made some progress with this trip. The best part is the relationships built with the doctors and nurses and the people one on one. I was wishing I could have seen the two nurses I talked about earlier (pictured)when I was coming back from my last day ashore, I had such a good time with them, when as I was going down to my berthing I saw a whole tour of Vietnamese coming up the stairs and one stopped and looked at me. It was Phuong, one of the nurses and right behind her was Phuc (pr.fook). We all squealed and hugged each other and promised to e-mail each other, that was pretty cool.
Friday (your Thursday) night I went to the farewell reception and that was pretty amazing. I met Admiral Crowder who is head of the Navy for the whole Pacific, and his wife, also Dr. Julie Gerberding Director of the Center for Disease Control, the Counsel General of the Embassy in Hanoi, the Chair of the People's Committee, and several high ranking medical and military Vietnamese. What a huge honor. The band played extremely well as usual and a few people got up to dance. Of course I was one of them, I think I take after mom with that.
Not everyone enjoyed being here so much. I talked to one of the civilian mariners who had been here during the war and didn't think it would affect him but it did.
At one of the medical sites there was a Vietnamese elderly man who was in a sort of tricycle device, he had been injured by a blast in the war, he was fighting for the north. He couldn't make it inside the clinic and one of our nurses saw him sitting under a tree so she had one of the docs come over and see him. He left but then came back later in the day to give us a piece of his mind. He shouted amongst the crowd that "The Vietnamese and Americans are brothers, and diplomacy was helping the lowest man who had the least and not the guys higher up shaking hands (I'm paraphrasing) and he presented a letter to the doc for the Medical Corps along with the third highest medal awarded from the North Vietnamese that he had received himself. Incredible. I wonder what will really happen from all this. We also saw a draft dodger who had cut off his index finger so he wouldn't have to serve in the war. Some things are just the same wherever you go. We are human beings first. I want a shirt that says that.
Found a local surf shop but the only thing they had with their logo on it were the T-shirts they wore as a uniform and they were not for sale. Lots of stories, not enough time.
In a couple of days we'll be in Singapore, then after that we go to Timor Leste, they really need the help.

Happy Birthday Freddy! Love, Mom
Happy Birthday Freddy! I have to get a link to his website.