Turns out he wanted to show me shrapnel wounds in his hair. Many of them are meeting an American veteran face to facen for the very first time when they meet me. I've found it's sort of a ritual among them to share their war wounds. You know, I can actually foresee joint American and Vietnamese rap groups. The meetings, he says, are the antithesis of war.
War dehumanizes the enemy.
Then you come back to their turf and meet them. If you actually knew the people you were fighting during the war it would be counter-productive to war objectives. You'd think of them as human beings, difficult to kill. Joe feels that those who insisted for so long that the embargo continue are prolongers of the war. Joe has found that the Vietnamese sympathize with the American desire for a return of bodies.