America fought in the Vietnam war (known in the Vietnam war museum as the "American aggressive war"), so as a history fan and believer in the fact that all stories have multiple sides, I visited ho chi minh's war attractions.
I began the day with Monica at the cu chi tunnels, where the intro video, seemingly made in the 30s!, described the "devil American" and accolades to Vietnamese as "number one American killer". This had me feeling sad and uneasy. Good thing I'm from Vancouver...
The caves were built by the Vietnamese after bombing forced them underground. Unable to combat American weaponry outright, the locals apparently used hunting trap concepts and tunnels to ambush and kill Americans. It was sad to see the traps, which seemed painful and horrible, especially knowing so many young men were drafted in a controversial, unpopular war. These boys probably wanted to be in the jungle as much as these locals wanted them there. :(
Continuing the dia de war learning, we headed to the museum. The first floor consisted of anti-American-involvement photos and posters from around the world. I was happy to see it wasn't so biased to leave out the USs protests. This wall featured Kent state, quotes from Dr. King, and quotes from congressmen opposing the war.
On the second floor the agent Orange/napalm room was dedicated to some stats about the amount of chemicals dropped along with large photos of birth defects suspected from agent Orange. Perhaps some is propaganda, perhaps some isn't. Regardless it had me wanting to look more into the "official" reason for the US using chemical warfare.
Finally, to a display of war images compiled from photojournalists on both fronts. Photos of US troops and killings of Vietnamese were adjacent to photos of Viet cong crossing rivers at night with ammunition boxes. The juxtaposition was very interesting, and the exhibit also drew attention to the mostly-unsung hero, the war photojournalist.
One pervasive sentiment for me was that the people on the ground and their loved ones bear the physical, emotional, and psychological pain caused by the war. I think of vets returning home with PTSD, of the guerilla tactics being maddening as you cannot trust anyone (perhaps even your own shadow), and of the American photojournalist describing taking photos of children before they were shot by Americans. The story is so full of losers. It's frustrating to have so much suffering over a cause that seems so pathetically political.
I posted a sentiment of war having no winners on Facebook, and a friend of my dad's (also a vet) chimed in that McDonnell Douglas is a winner, with huge sales and profits. I'm practical enough to know that in this lies some truth. To that end, why were chemical weapons used? Rumor in the war museum was that chemical companies wanted to test things. A slanderous rumor?
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