The War Musuem in Saigon
By Alex
As a young adult in the US, Vietnam is something you know about and are aware of, but very rarely something that is understood, at least for me personally (other young people can speak for themselves). America went to war and lost. We forced people to fight in the war and everything was highly controversial if not flat out wrong. Our country was divided and did terrible things. These shallow understandings of the conflict pale in comparison with some of the things we saw at the War Remnants Museum in Saigon.
No caption needed...
Although the museum is clearly propagandized, it is embarrassing how little the Vietnamese government has to alter the facts of the war to make their point. That America entered into an unjust war and committed atrocities against the people of Vietnam. To drive the point home, they display the preamble of the Declaration of Independence as a stark reminder of the hypocrisy of the war. In no place is this embarrassment more acute than in the "Agent Orange Room:" an entirely separate room unto itself across from the "War Crimes Room" and just downstairs from a second room on chemical warfare against the Vietnamese. There, they cite actual figures directly from US Department of Defense reports on the volume and type of chemical weapons used in Vietnam and juxtapose it with pictures of women and children who suffered the horrifying effects. I won't go into too much detail because I don't want to ruin your day, but I felt physically ill and needed to sit down for a while after seeing the exhibits featuring pictures of the victims. The idea that my government could be responsible for such heinous acts and at such a magnitude was something that I had never really digested about the Vietnam War. I was aware that atrocities were committed and that it was an embarrassing aspect of our history, but to see them there right in front of me was sobering.
Other Takeaways
In the courtyard of the museum sits a squadron of military equipment used by the US during the war. Fighter jets, helicopter gunships, tanks, artillery, bulldozers, bombers, fricken tank sized flame-throwers! The first thing I could think of when seeing all this equipment was "How in the hell could we ever lose a war with equipment this sophisticated?" I mean, we can helicopter artillery into the mountains and then refuel the helicopter without even landing! To this, Rachel was quick to point out something that we had talked about extensively while traveling the countryside, that Vietnam was the last place you would ever want to fight a land war. We had stared into fiercely dense jungles and across mountainous terrain and both come to the same conclusion: a conventional army would fair very poorly in these places against people who truly knew the land. But again, seeing it right in front of your eyes makes it painfully obvious.
"On loan" from the United States
Overall, the museum was a jarring remnant of the Vietnam War from the perspective of the Vietnamese Communist government. As an American visiting Vietnam, the shadow of the war, thankfully, does not follow you around. Rachel and I have, in fact, been heartened by Vietnamese who say they are so happy to see Americans come see their amazing country given the history. But in the back of our minds, its something we both have thought about and consider during our trip, and seeing this museum was important in addressing what happened and moving on.