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My first day in Ho Chi Minh City, I rent a nearly dilapidated scooter to ride on its anarchic streets. The world is close by, almost too close. It crowds around me; just an inch keeps it at bay. Beyond that, another vehicle – a car or a truck probably, but mostly other scooters – loaded with plants, chickens, families with babies drooping precariously from the arms of mothers, whose Ao Dai’s flirt with the spokes of the wheels. I follow the road along its twists and turns until I reach the storied districts of Cu Chi, the the Viet Cong’s base of operations in the war. The American War, it is called here. - If a country is like a plant, then soldiers are its trunk and stem – strengthening, protecting it, and farmers are like its roots – running deep and quiet, providing fuel and nourishment. NamTran Thuan had started out a root, but the trunk pulled him in. It was 1968, the war already three years old. What he didn’t know was that he was to fight yet again, in the month-long border war with China in 1979. - All around Cu Chi are signs, at once of warning and concern: “Please do not enter the tunnels if you are claustrophobic or asthmatic.”. I am both, but I am drawn on. Many tunnels have been closed to the public, due to lack of oxygen, flooding, or ceaseless bombing, the effects of which still reveal themselves in cracks and fissures. I imagine these structures folding in on themselves with me inside them. - Small and nimble, NamTran was entrusted with delaying the American charge on the villages. He could lure and trap them in the tunnels before blowing away their limbs from below. The diversion would allow precious time for the villagers to flee or hide. - As I approach a tunnel I try to think what it might have been like to creep past the bear traps and huts with hidden arms. The entrance is so small that I need to descend feet first, hands in the air. The guide shouts, “Crouch and make sure you do not disturb the bats and the cockroaches.” As if crawling through a tight space wasn’t panic-inducing enough, I had to make sure that the “fauna”, inches from my head, didn’t register my threatening presence. Reserving the meltdown for later, I try getting through the tunnels quickly and quietly. I am questioning my motivation that led me to these hell-holes. - NamTran knew that delays favored the weaker side, facilitating reloading and rethinking. He worked on trapping and jamming an American soldier in the tunnel entrance. . The third almost blew off his own. Above the ground, the Americans could not risk dropping a grenade or pursuing NamTran. He guessed it would take them a half hour to haul the dying man out. Now he had to run three miles, to the end of the tunnel, praying his head start was enough. - I am breathless as I move. - NamTran is breathless as he runs. - Trying my best to not get lost in the labyrinth, I follow the voice of the footsteps of my guide. - Trying his best to not get lost in the labyrinth, NamTran follows the shafts of sunlight streaming in from the structures’ airholes. He can hear the American troops slowly descending. - Finally, I see the light—it really is at the end of the tunnel—and make a beeline towards the exit. - NamTran sees the exit, too. Arranging his remaining ammo for detonation, he picks up pace. - I am out of the tunnel. Fresh air, never felt so fresh. I’m done. Tomorrow, I’ll cruise Halong Bay. - NamTran emerges and throws back a bomb. There’s an explosion, but he isn’t done. Tomorrow, it’ll be another tunnel.