Courtesy: golfasian.com

Ho Chi Minh is a name that many Vietnam War veterans will never forget.

Nor will the nation of Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh was instrumental in founding and then leading the Democratic Republic of Vietnam which emerged, not surprisingly, from widespread bloodshed as Ho's Viet Minh fought a resistance campaign against the French in the 1940s and 50s.

Many will recall how French forces were defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, a defeat that forced France to give up its claims in Indochina and withdraw completely.

That, of course, cleared the way for the United States to enter.

We are all familiar with the main points of the Vietnam War, a war that took hundreds of thousands of lives in a futile attempt by the U.S. to shore up a corrupt regime in the South.

Ho Chi Minh continued to inspire his people to fight for their independence and the re-unification of North and South.

The government of North Vietnam began to funnel aid and materiel to insurgent Viet Cong forces in the South along what became known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Supplies were routed through Laos and Cambodia.

All in all, it was a very bloody time in that part of Southeast Asia and remains a dark and sad chapter in America's history.

Ironically, it was the French who coined the saying "the more things change, the more they remain the same".

Today, Vietnam is greatly changed; it's one of the new engines of economic growth in Southeast Asia, openly embracing the tenets of free market economics while remaining under Communist government control.

Yet Ho Chi Minh continues to make his presence felt 40 years after his death; his face adorns the currency, his embalmed body lies on display in a mausoleum and his portrait can be found on buildings throughout the country.

It's almost absurd, then, that today, the Ho Chi Minh Trail is no longer a route for military supplies and weapons to fight a nasty guerilla war but a series of newly created golf courses in the thriving, prosperous nation of Vietnam.

The Trail is comprised of 7 golf resorts and the government is working hard to push golf tourism around the world. The Trail no longer wends through the steamy jungles of Laos and Cambodia, however, sticking strictly to a route inside the borders.

The whole thing is equally bizarre when you peruse the website and learn that Ho would have loved golf because he was a fitness buff, that he really did love Americans and quoted from the Constitution and that Americans who met Ho, really liked him, too.

There is a palpable sense of trying to make it all fit together: Ho's fight for the independence of his people, the bloodshed and vast loss of life and lush golf resorts for well-heeled tourists.

Something tells me square pegs don't belong in round holes.