"Every war has its hotel," the New York Times's Thomas Friedman wrote of his stay at Beirut's infamous Commodore during some of the heaviest fighting of Lebanon's vicious 1975-1990 civil war. From Baghdad's Al Hamra to Sarajevo's Holiday Inn, here are six of the most notable "war hotels," remembered by the correspondents who briefly called them home.

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CARAVELLE HOTEL
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

"In the early hours of [April 28, 1975] the runways and terminal buildings at Tan Son Nhut Airport were pounded by the big artillery guns that the communists had dragged down from the mountains. The shell fire woke the city. I tumbled out of bed at the Caravelle as the first shells landed at 4 a.m., and ran to the hotel roof, where a few colleagues had already gathered. Aircraft and buildings were burning. As a smoky dawn rose over Saigon's rooftops we saw that many residents were watching, as we were, a few brave aircraft dueling with gunners on the ground, their miniguns spitting sheets of flaming steel as surface-to-air missiles flew up toward them. I saw two aircraft fall from the sky. I phoned [George] Esper [Associated Press bureau chief in Saigon] from the Caravelle's bar. We agreed that the shelling would probably end the evacuation at the airport and activate Option 4, the final pullout."

--Former AP reporter Peter Arnett in his book Live from the Battlefield

HOTEL COMMODORE
Beirut, Lebanon

"It wasn't just the parrot in the bar, which did a perfect imitation of the whistle of an incoming shell, that made the place so weird; it wasn't just the front desk clerk, who would ask registering guests whether they wanted a room on the 'shelling side' of the hotel, which faced East Beirut, or the peaceful side of the hotel, which faced the sea; it wasn't the way they 'laundered' your hotel bills by putting all your bar charges down as 'dry cleaning.'… It was the whole insane atmosphere."

--Thomas Friedman in his book From Beirut to Jerusalem 

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