By Ernest Larsen and Sherry Millner. Suppose you take a barefoot walk along the sweeping stretch of white-powder China Beach toward what the marines called Monkey Mountain (toward Da Nang, that is, where U.S. soldiers were sent for R&R--the first marines deployed to Vietnam, came ashore at Namo Beach, on the north end of Da Nang in '65). It's best, if you have any sort of a sensitive streak, not to allow your gaze to stray too far ashore. >>

By Ernest Larsen and Sherry Millner.It was the more than 40-year resonance of all those indelible place names that made the final reckoning for us to come to Vietnam--but no such name was more fraught than My Lai. We hired a car and driver to take us on a cloudy day to what is called--not My Lai--the Son My Vestige Area. >>

By Ernest Larsen and Sherry Millner. The bus from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap makes its routine rest-stop in Kampong Thom, a dusty bustling provincial town. From the open-air restaurant, where we consume a quick bowl of pho, Sherry points out that the street corner sign reads in English: "Democrat Street." I take a quick photo, noticing that we are in fact at the eternally imperiled corner of Democrat Street and National Road. >>