Ho Chi Minh City is crowded, noisy, untidy and chaotic. I miss the orderly life of suburban America and the comfort of my apartment and my truck when I'm here, but when I get back in the USA I miss the craziness of Ho Chi Minh City or Bangkok.

Thailand has good medical care and even though I haven't tried it, Singapore is said to have high quality care also.

On my discharge, I had the challenge of putting my life back together but Vietnam stuck in the inner recesses of my mind.

If, at the end of my days, the sum of what I've taken exceeds the sum of what I've given, then I have lived in vain.

The Vietnam War was in full swing, the Air Force wanted me and I wanted out of Flint, so three years in the USA and that fourth one spent here in Vietnam really flipped my life around.

Some 30 years later I found myself back here again [in Vietnam] on what was to be a short visit that lasted months, and since then I've been living my life with one foot in Ho Chi Minh City and the other in Fair Oaks, California.

Why Ho Chi Minh City? It is crowded, noisy, scruffy, crazy, but always interesting and things are happening all at a break neck speed.