It is the present and I am with Bao Ninh in Vietnam. He leads me about, showing me different sites and soldiers. There is a certain intimacy, a certain understanding between us all. We communicate without language. At a rehab center I sit with a Vietnamese veteran who sketches pencil drawings. When he sharpens the point by pressing it into the blunt stub of his lower arm, I wince and offer help, but he declines. He is proud and self-sufficient and this is his way of doing things. In another room I see the drawings of school children. They are colorful, lively, happy. There is no sense of war.