Photo: John McCain, Still Falling in Hanoi

When driving along West Lake in the Vietnamese city of Hanoi, you may notice an easily missed concrete monument on the side of the road. It shows a falling pilot and an inscription beside it states that on October 26, 1967, John McCain was shot down here. Thirty-one other U.S. aircraft were also downed on this day, according to the inscription. The monument is one of the few overt reminders of the war in Hanoi; most of the city is focused firmly on moving ahead in the twenty-first century.