SURFING INTO THE MELANCHOLY PAST

A sports competition, of all things, lures a journalist into Vietnam, where all is smiles and sadness, and nobody can find Hamburger Hill

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During lulls in the rock-'n'-roll war there were G.I.s who rode the waves of the South China Sea on pieces of fiber glass shipped from home. The stretch of sugary sand they favored most came to be known as China Beach. When the war was quit and the Americans were gone, nobody, much less Charlie, was borne upon a breaker for a very long time. Then, about a year ago, a sentimental American vet in Hong Kong persuaded a couple of sports promoters to...

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