It is difficult to imagine my life without Vietnam. I say this from the perspective of 30 years of experience with Asian affairs in the military, in government policy positions, in the private sector and academe.

Vietnam entered my life as I was preparing for my assignment in 1968. It included language and civil affairs training and months of reading. I requested an assignment as an advisor to the Vietnamese rather than a U.S. Army unit and the requisite training because I felt, in the final analysis, the Vietnamese would determine the ultimate outcome of the war.

In November 1968 1 arrived for my assignment around midnight on a steel-matted airstrip lit by jeep headlights to help land the two-seat aircraft. The destination was Chuong Thien Province, the second least pacified province in Vietnam near the U Minh Forest.

Time Magazine, November 14, 1969

"Sir: I've cried with them at their funer- als, laughed with them at their weddings, drunk with them during their celebrations. I've seen pride in a yellow-and-red flag on the faces of peasants who not many years ago had no flag. I've seen rice fields that have lain bare for years spring to life with rice again. I've seen canals reopened that had been previously closed for years by the Viet- nam Cong. I've seen the people clear the years of undergrowth from their ancestral tombs, rebuild and begin to live again. I've seen 13-year-old children start to school for the first time. I've seen a young mother saved at childbirth because of a newly opened dispensary. I've seen communities spring to life again as they are given security to travel and trade goods in adjacent villages. And I've slogged with these same people through mud toward tree lines that burst into hostility; toward an enemy that assassinates their elected officials by night, intimidates them in their fields by day, shells their communities and claims to be their liberator.

"My American, you may declare a moratorium on what is happening here, but I've seen it and lived it -- if I joined you, I would have to declare a moratorium on my soul."

Capt. Richard Childress

I wrote the above letter when I was leaving Vietnam in 1969. It was a personal statement of my experience as a District Senior Advisor with my five man team deep in the Mekong Delta. We lived with the Vietnamese and never saw a U.S. military unit. The media reporting of the war focused on large U.S. operations, the bombing of the north and domestic upheaval. It was frustrating to us that what we were seeing and doing was not reported or we believed even known.

I left Vietnam and went to Germany for 2 1/2 years. 1 followed the war closely from that distance and never realized as an Asian specialist that responsibilities related to Vietnam would become salient again in my life after the end of the war.

I watched helplessly, as did others, the fall of Saigon, the establishment of reeducation camps, the massive outflow of land and boat refugees, the brutality of Pol Pot's rise to power and its attendant slaughter while some on the political left defended the horrible outcome.

In the Pentagon as a general staff officer in the late 1970s, I prepared staff papers suggesting potential strategies to address the humanitarian nightmares and to fashion a political settlement in Cambodia that would end the Vietnamese occupation, prevent the return of the Khmer Rouge and create a neutral, independent Cambodia. In vain, I attempted to generate greater interest and a national strategy to account for Americans missing in action.

In 1981, I accepted a position as Director of Asian Affairs at the White House National Security Council. My responsibilities included all of Southeast Asia, the POW/MIA issue and international refugees.

For almost eight years, at least 30 percent of my 70-hour weeks were spent on issues relating to Vietnam. During this time, Hanoi began the long-awaited withdrawal from Cambodia, began to seriously address the POW/MIA issue to include the return of some of the remains of Americans stored by their government, reeducation camps began to empty, an Amerasian program was established and hundreds of thousands of refugees were resettled.

I found myself in secret negotiations at the highest levels with my former enemy on these subjects in New York and Hanoi. Despite the progress, when I left government service in 1989, many of these issues remained with us then and today.

I have continued, as a private citizen, to help the National League of Families, humanitarian organizations bringing charitable relief to the Vietnamese people and those still deeply involved in resettlement of the remaining refugees in camps of first asylum or still in Vietnam.

The current administration has lifted the trade embargo and normalized diplomatic relations, yet the leadership of Vietnam has still not made the political decision to fully cooperate on the POW/MIA issue or refugees. The human rights situation remains abysmal, the expectations of a new Asian tiger turn out to be empty rhetoric and many in the Vietnamese leadership remain paranoid to the outside world.

These objective facts are too often overlooked in the media and in discussions about Vietnam today. It resembles the self-induced amnesia of 1976-1980. Whether it results from wishful thinking and some pathologic assumed guilt is a question for sociology and psychology, But it does point out our inability to be objective about things "Vietnam" over time.

We hear much about healing, but millions of my fellow Vietnam veterans never felt the need to heal. In my individual case, perhaps it is because Vietnam and Vietnamese issues have been a consistent part of my life for about 30 years. Perhaps it is the many conversations with Asians, who recognize the vibrant economies of Southeast Asia would not be where they are without the U.S. commitment in Vietnam. Perhaps it was my experience in Vietnam reflected in my 1969 letter.

Regardless, I do believe there are legitimate lessons that can be learned concerning how the war was conducted and how we became involved, but I reject those who refuse to recognize the positive side of our involvement or who posit that because of the way the war ended, the Politburo was right. That is revisionist nonsense, Apologies and forgiveness are not required.

The continued focus on healing can blur rational thinking and has probably added to whatever pathology existed before. Some of us were spat upon and overlooked the ignorance and most didn't expect a parade. But we did and still do expect objectivity and a national devotion to resolving the uncertainties of the MIA families, resettling those Vietnamese who worked with us during the war and pursuing policies that recognize U.S.-Vietnam relations can never be on a solid foundation if we romanticize the current conditions in Vietnam.

We are not about refighting that war. The United States should be about engagement with Vietnam as sovereign states with national interests. Sentimentality and domestic hand-wringing over the war interferes with this need and is a nonproductive exercise.

Richard T. Childress