Newsweek: Why Vietnam Loves McCain

Nurse who first treated McCain; Hanoi Hilton’s prison director. Source: Newsweek.

This being an election year, I am on quite a few email lists and came across this one from the Silicon Valley Obama email list, an article on McCain. Newsweek interviewed the nurse who first took care of McCain when he crash landed in Vietnam as well as McCain’s prison director at the “Hanoi Hilton” (who totally denies that McCain was tortured – maybe we have another swiftboating here…), as well as many others in Vietnam, in “Why Vietnam Loves McCain“:

“Just about everyone in Vietnam agrees. They all know who McCain is, and no one seems to hold a grudge about the 23 bombing missions he flew against targets in and around Hanoi. That goes for ordinary Vietnamese, senior bureaucrats and people who met him during his captivity—the district nurse who may have saved his life after he was shot down, and the hard-line military officer who was his chief jailer for more than five years at the Plantation and the notorious Hanoi Hilton. They like the way McCain pushed Washington to normalize relations in the 1990s and the way trade has mushroomed from $1.5 billion in 2001 to $12 billion last year, and they believe he’ll help them even more if he wins. It’s a far cry from the day McCain parachuted from his disintegrating jet and was severely beaten and stripped to his underwear by the mob that pulled him from Truc Bach Lake.”

Basically, it looks like the Vietnamese liked how McCain put the past behind him, and help re-open the United States to Vietnam (along with other veterans like his fellow Senator John Kerry). A lot has been made about McCain’s previous comments specifically (purportedly) regarding his Vietnamese captors and torturers, “I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live.” He later apologized for using that epithet. I personally give him the benefit of the doubt.

Now I am not supporting McCain in this election, and definitely respect his service to this country. I cannot even imagine surviving 5 years in a prison camp, especially with years of solitary confinement as well as torture. I registered as a Republican to vote for McCain in the 2000 California Republican primary because I thought he was the MUCH better Republican candidate (and knew that George W. Bush would be a huge mistake if nominated and then elected…) – though I did vote for Gore in November.

What I wonder is how Vietnamese-Americans feel about McCain? I’m sure the anti-Communists in San Jose who were ardent supporters for “Little Saigon” are probably pro-McCain, but how about overall? I’m sure the American-born Vietnamese-American probably has very little connection to the Vietnam War of the 60’s and early 70s. Who do Vietnamese-Americans lean more towards – if anybody at all – or is it split even?