Chapter 4 examines how veterans responded to the presence and absence of war remnants in Việt Nam. Returning veterans often engaged in battlefield pilgrimage as a way to reflect on the past, encountering or visiting war remnants in the form of battle locations or military bases. However, for the Vietnamese, the remnants of war were not limited to battlefields and military architecture. This chapter takes a broad view of relics and remnants, considering alongside military battlefields and bases the ecological, social, and individual effects of war on those who lived through it and those born in its aftermath. These more subtle remnants were obvious to some returnees, but to others, they were invisible. Exploring veterans’ reactions to the presence or absence of war remnants in these forms illuminates further remnants of war: the biases and other lingering effects of wartime ideologies of the Australians and Americans who returned.

Collaboration between Washington and Hanoi on humanitarian issues expanded significantly during the second half of the 1980s. International, regional, and domestic transformations facilitated enhanced cooperation. The thawing of the Cold War on a larger scale, including the Regan-Gorbachev summits, set the stage for closer relations. In Hanoi, the ascension of a new, younger generation of leaders more willing to transform Vietnamese economic and foreign policy invited closer ties. In Washington, the growing assertiveness of members of Congress, especially veterans, and the importance of nongovernmental advocacy, especially that of the Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association, all combined to lead to a dramatic thaw in US-Vietnamese relations.

Throughout the 1980s, US policymakers insisted that Hanoi address humanitarian questions (to American satisfaction) before the two sides could proceed with formal relations. While demanding that the SRV work with the United States to facilitate family reunification, US policymakers also led an international effort to isolate the SRV on a global stage.As the decade came to a close, the contradiction between these two approaches became increasingly unsustainable; cooperation on humanitarian issues was normalizing US-Vietnamese relations, despite American assertions to the contrary.

As the Reagan administration reinvigorated the Cold War during its first term, US officials also expanded ongoing dialogue with Hanoi. This incongruity is explained by the fact that the issues American officials championed all painted vivid pictures of the evils of communism, including PO/MIA accounting and emigration programs for South Vietnamese, including Amerasians and former reeducation camp detainees. US officials described these causes as “humanitarian” causes.While discussions on “political” issues remained suspended, humanitarian concerns dominated the US-SRV agenda. US officials consistently earmarked more than 50% of annual refugee admissions slots for Indochinese throughout the 1980s.

Reagan’s celebration of the Vietnam War as a “noble cause” and casting of the American soldier as a national hero reverberated widely. Veterans’ rising political capital opened even more space for members of Congress who had served in Vietnam to become some of the most prominent American voices in the US-SRV normalization process. At the same time, nonstate actors continued to play crucial roles. This chapter uses Ginetta Sagan’s Aurora Foundation to highlight the importance of NGO advocacy, the ongoing linkage between humanitarian and human rights rhetoric, and the ways gender dynamics played an important part in solidifying connections between nonexecutive actors.