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| War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam |
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| A chemical defoliant tank |
While I am a low key history nerd (ok, maybe not that low key) my interests tend to focus more on the cultural side of history and less on wars. This means that while I have some vague memories of discussing the Vietnam War in history classes growing up, I honestly did not know very much. Since moving to South East Asia I've learned a bit more, as the American War, since Cambodia was one of the countries affected by the war. A basic, extremely barebones, summary of the history is while North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, won it's independence from colonial France in 1945 as a communist state, South Vietnam did not gain independence until sometime later. When the South became independent they chose to become a democracy separate from the North. This decision to not unite with the North lead to the war from 1955 until the fall of Saigon in 1975.
1 The War was essentially a proxy war for the Soviet Union and the United States because of the supports they provided.
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| American military airplane |
With this in mind, I headed over to Vietnam for the first time. My first stop was the city of Ho Chi Minh, formerly known as Saigon and the former capital of South Vietnam. The one thing I knew I wanted to do in the city was go to the War Remnants Museum. The entrance to the museum is a courtyard filled with airplanes, tanks, and other vehicles used but the Americans during the war.
2 It struck me as a bit odd that there weren't Vietnamese vehicles as well, until I realized they really did not have many. The American military had them out armed by a long shot.
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| Propaganda poster |
I started on an exhibit focused on support for a united Vietnam- well, what the Museum colors as support. The examples of support the museum used included the antiwar movement in the United States. This goes against the little I know about the movement, which I always saw a movement against the U.S. involvement in the war, not a support of North Vietnam. Starting from this exhibit made the story the museum was trying to tell very clear: the US was an aggressor who tried to keep the North and South separated, while the South and the rest of the world thought Vietnam should be one whole. This was taken to such an extreme that any kind of dissent against the war was colored at support. They even used the term the War of American Aggression.
3 This framing of the story continued throughout the museum with exhibits such as "Aggression War Crimes", which featured examples of war crimes including torture and the murder of civilians committed by the U.S. Military, and one on the continuing effects of Agent Orange and other chemicals.
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| Example of a trap in Cu Chi |
While I continued to digest this narrative, I decided to visit the Cu Chi Tunnels. The Tunnels were used by the Viet Cong and other local communist supporters. Since they were out gunned by the Americans they had to use more innovative strategies to survive. In Cu Chi District they dug a complex series of tunnels, including multiple levels for traveling, fighting, and living. Local community members and the fighters lived in the tunnels with no electricity, and would only come out at night to do things like tend crops, collect weapons or tools left by the Americans, and fight. The tunnels were designed to be just big enough for the Vietnamese to fit, since they were often significantly smaller than American soldiers, and included landmines and traps just incase part of the tunnels were infiltrated. There were other traps in the area, designed to trap and injure anyone you stepped on them, mainly with the goal of capturing them in order to trade the soldiers for supplies including medicine.
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| Inside a tunnel in Cu Chi |
I figured the tour would have a similar slant as the museum, and considering it started with a propaganda video from the 1960's about the the tunnel it easily could have been if it wasn't for our tour guide.
5 The tour guide made a point of talking about the tunnels as a strategy, and made multiple reference to the Saigon based democratic government of the time. While he did not say anything outright to contradict the narrative of the American aggressor, he also didn't emphasize it, and spoke about the the people in the Cu Chi region who sided with the democracy.
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| "Hanoi, Hue, Saigon. Homeland is indivisible." |
I remember my AP U.S. History teacher once telling me the victor writes history.
6 This experience both confirmed and denied her theory in my mind. In Vietnam, the victor was clearly telling their narrative of unity and victory over the American aggressors. While in the States we avoid telling the story, and when we do we make it as bare bones as possible and tinged it with regret. I would love to be able to hear other sides of the story- stories of dissent within Vietnam, or stories from those who supported the democracy.
Witnessing these differing narratives, and reflecting upon how they have likely changed since the war itself, makes me wonder about the stories and narratives we will tell about our current world conflicts. In forty years will we avoid talking about Iraq? In fifty years will we speak with regret about our military actions in Syria? And maybe most importantly, what can we do now to make sure we like the stories that will be told?
Disappearing into the Cu Chi tunnels:
1 That's long enough that young soldiers who fought during the beginning of the war could feasibly have children who were old enough to serve near the end of the war.↩
2 There was also a tank at the Cu Chi Tunnels which tourists used as a photo op and jungle gym, while I stood there furious, thinking to myself "this is a weapon meant to destroy and kill."↩
3 This reminded me of how some parts of the U.S. talk about the Civil War.↩
4 As you can imagine life in underground tunnels wasn't a very hygienic, and a significant number of people who lived in the tunnels died from illness.↩
5 After the video, my seat buddy turned to me and jokingly announced "Well, I think I'm a communist now."↩
6 Except for the Civil War, according to this teacher.↩
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