The Elephant Story

The Fiftieth Anniversary of The Tet Offensive

Mar 05, 2018 | 0 comments

It is a strange event for any American, Australian, New Zealander, South Korean or Thai who fought in the Viet Nam War to celebrate the Tet offensive in South Viet Nam which occurred fifty years ago last month. The offensive preceded the Tet holiday or lunar new year celebrated by the Vietnamese. The Tet offensive spawned a massive escalation in the Viet Nam War and resulted in the loss of an average of 45 American soldiers per day that year. It led President Lyndon Johnson not to seek a second term of office. Accordingly, it was a celebratory event for...

Frequent Fliers and The Hanoi Hilton

Feb 13, 2017 | 0 comments

Back during the Vietnam War era, the last hotel you wanted to visit was "The Hanoi Hilton" or what was officially known as Hoa Lo Prison. When the author started visiting Hanoi in the early nineties, the "Hanoi Hilton" was still standing. It would have been on a great jogging route from the Metropole Hotel but too depressing because of the bad spirits that resided there and the author chose another jogging path around Truc Bach Lake. The "Hanoi Hilton", shown below in a photo surreptitiously taken by the author on an early morning jog, was formerly a French prison...