Hanoi

Sontag's trip to Vietnam as described in her essay, shows the overlooked mentality of the North Vietnamese people that were often considered the enemy, even though they most of them treated the Americans as friends. This really is the greatest achievement of her piece on Vietnam. It disproves almost all of the assumptions made by the American public around 1968 and helps paint a picture of the real Vietnam culture.

During her trip, she describes how the Vietnamese took the American pilot and gave him a traditional burial, even though he was the enemy and was helping to destroy their village. Not only did the people bury him, they erected a shrine-like memorial, as if he was an important person in the village. This kind of action shows how vastly different our cultures are, especially when it comes to how we treat our enemies. Many Americans assumed, including the author herself, that the North Vietnamese people were just an insignificant occupant of a nation under attack by communism. They continuously overlooked how kind and passionate the vietnamese actually are.