When retired Judge Bob Ensz was asked by his brother, Jim, if he wanted to go on a trip to Vietnam, Bob did not hesitate to say 'yes.'
Both he and Jim had served in the U.S. military in Vietnam and Bob said his return there this past January was "almost 50 years to the day from the time I first set foot in Vietnam."
The trip to Vietnam was entitled "Inside Vietnam," through the Overseas Adventure Travel group. The group left the United States on Jan. 10 and returned on Feb. 1.
Bob, a native of Beatrice, said that he was drafted into the military while in his first year of law school.
"My number came up in 1968, I attended basic training and was sent to Vietnam as a surveyor. I then became a legal clerk and served for a year and a half. I was stationed in a large camp that was fired upon by the Vietcong from time to time, but I was not directly involved in combat," Bob said.
When asked how the actual trip came about, he said that his brother had called him last October to see if he was interested.
The two brothers were part of a group of 15 people who toured both Vietnam and Cambodia.
"We flew to Hanoi in the northern part of the country. We visited a number of cultural sites there. This is the area where government censors are located. The people in Vietnam can not speak out against the government with fear of being punished. There area cameras everywhere," Bob said.
"After that we traveled south to Hue. This was the site of some of the most vicious battles during the war. It is also home to the impressive citadel, which is several centuries old," he said.
From there the group traveled to Danang and then to Nha Trang.
It was in Nha Trang where Bob served during his time in the military 50 years ago.
"I didn't recognize a lot of the area. There were very beautiful beaches that I remembered, but the area is very touristy today. When I was there, it was a sleepy village with lots of French influence. Now, there are high-rise buildings everywhere and the base on which I served is no longer in existence.," Bob said.
He noted that while the city has many beautiful hotels and good food, there is considerable poverty in the outlying villages.
"People there live day-to-day with no hope of changing the way they live," Bob said.
The 40,000 greenhouses in the mountainous area of Dalat were very impressive to Bob. He again noted a large French influence in the region.
While in this area, the group visited the Montagnards, tribal people who are kept apart from the rest of the society. Tourists can not go into the area where they live without permission.
"These people are darker skinned than other Vietnamese and these people fought with the Americans against the Vietnamese during the war.
The next stop on the trip was Ho Chi Minh City (Siagon), a city of 12 million people, including a number of Americans. Many of these are living in Vietnam and teaching in schools and universities.
In addition to the time spent in Vietnam, Bob spent five days in Cambodia.
"We went to Angkor, Siem Reap Province and visited one of the largest temples in the world. Later we visited the Killing Fields Memorial Temple. This is where approximately 2 million people were systematically killed. They have thousands and thousands of the skulls of those killed on display here,"
Bob had a number of general comments about his trip, including the fact that the Vietnamese seem to revere John McCain, the American who was held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam for more than five years. He later did much to help with American/Vietnamese relationships.
Religion in Vietnam is "totally personal. No one seems to go as a group, and it is not something younger people are interested in."
"There is lots of western influence in Vietnam. Everywhere we went there were people watching soccer games on flat screen TVs," Bob said.
He said noted there is "lots of poverty, especially outside the cities. There are a number of orphanages, often home to children who have Vietnamese and American parents and are not adoptable."
Ensz also said that while on his trip he observed that there are no cemeteries for South Vietnamese soldiers, only for North Vietnamese.
He summed up his experience by saying one of his goals was to see how people in Vietnam live, 50 years after he first 'visited' the country.
"In the villages people are living the same way they did 50 years ago. In the cities, it is different, but it seemed to me that often, the women were doing the labor and the men were talking and making decisions."
