Vietnamese sister city a hard sell in NC Army town

[April 22, 2010]  FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) -- The mayor of one of America's most renowned Army cities wants to establish cultural ties to a rural Vietnamese town, a plan that has angered some veterans who served in Southeast Asia generations ago.

Some Vietnam vets who still live in the Fort Bragg area are embracing the idea as a chance to lay to rest the ill will that has lingered for more than four decades, though it's clear animosity toward the war remains.

"It is just not over with them and it never was cleanly over," said retired Col. Bill Richardson, an 80-year-old who said he served 14 months in Vietnam with the Special Forces. "I don't think we ought to be dealing with them on a city-to-city thing. It just dredges up a lot of bad feelings."

The offer from officials in Soc Trang, in southern Vietnam, to become sister cities with Fayetteville already seems to have accomplished one important step: Pro or con, people are talking about it.

"The symbolism is a powerful healing message. It really is this city and the people who live here willing to put something behind them that in some ways we've had trouble shaking," Fayetteville Mayor Tony Chavonne said. "I don't think there is a city in America that has a closer bond, good or bad, with that period of time in our history and that conflict."

Chavonne was born in Fayetteville, a city considered synonymous with Fort Bragg. His family members served in Vietnam and his best friend's father was killed there.

Between 1966 and 1970, more than 200,000 soldiers went through basic training at the massive Army base, Fort Bragg historian Donna Tabor said. The city became a focal point of the anti-war movement and earned the nickname "Fayettenam," though the origin of the moniker -- whether it was the high crime rate that coincided with the influx of draftees, or simply the number of troops themselves -- remains in dispute.

Either way, "It did become a very simple term that reflected a sense of where our country was at that time," Chavonne said. "We're not that place anymore."

Maybe not, but local chapters of the American Legion, 82nd Airborne Division Association and Veterans of Foreign Wars remain opposed to a relationship with a nation where, according to the Defense Department, some 58,000 U.S. service members died and more than 1,720 remain missing.

Don Talbot, a veterans activist and Vietnam veteran, said the mayor proposed the idea to him during a breakfast meeting a year ago, and Talbot told him he didn't like it.

"It is a communist country. Why do you want to go back to 40 years and say 'thank you' to a bygone era in the middle of a current war?" Talbot said. "It is a forgotten era and now he wants to bring it all back to heal us.

"Sir, I don't need to be healed."

Partnerships between cities in the U.S. and Vietnam are common. San Francisco, Seattle, New Haven, Conn., and Newport Beach, Calif., officially have sister cities, according to Sister Cities International. Oakland, Calif., Madison, Wisc., Pittsburgh and Honolulu also have such relationships, which typically include visits from exchange students and dignitaries.

While Newport Beach is just north of the Marines' Camp Pendleton and Honolulu and Seattle boast a strong Navy presence, no city on that list is as closely tied to the armed forces as Fayetteville, which Time magazine dubbed "America's most pro-military town" in 2008.

Since 1993, Fayetteville has been a sister city with Saint-Avold, France, home to a military cemetery with Europe's largest number of American graves from World War II. Chavonne is to visit there next month.

Like Saint-Avold, Soc Trang has direct ties to Fayetteville's military history. It was the site of an airfield where Fort Bragg units were based.

Vietnam vet Chris North remembers visiting the airfield for a few days in 1966 as part of a team that scouted locations for communications towers. He understands why many veterans don't want the partnership, saying he struggled with his own hatred of the Viet Cong guerillas.

"You reach a point where you see peace instead of animosity. But it is difficult to tell someone who has carried all that hate in them that this is going to work and this is going to help," said North, an 80-year-old Fayetteville resident.

He also noted that Soc Trang's location in what was then South Vietnam makes a difference today.

"I look upon the people approaching us as a conquered people," North said of the Soc Trang residents. "They fought on our side."

Chavonne said it might be a year before the city council in Fayetteville, which is also considering sister cities relationships in South Korea and India, decides whether to link up with Soc Trang.

[Associated Press; By KEVIN MAURER]

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