The War Museum

WARNING: This posting contains some very disturbing images. 

This post will not be to everyone's liking, but it will covey that sense of horror that you feel in this place. 

One of Winston Churchill’s famous sayings about war was that “History is written by the victors” and given that the Americans lost the Vietnam War, it is interesting to see the Vietnamese side of this story. 

The war museum in Ho Chi Minh City is a really confronting place to visit. Most people walk around in silence, with a looks of  shock, horror and disbelief on their faces.

One of the first images that affected me was the one where the Americans opened fire on protesters at the Ohio University. They shot and killed 5 demonstrators. Their own people, on their own soil, in the so-called land of the free.

Most of us have seen this photo of Kim Phuc after she was napalmed by the Americans. I guess they call this collateral damage.

But this photo shows how people look when they receive a full dose.

When I was young I grew up believing that the Americans were the ‘good guys’. But the good guys would never drag a body behind a tank until there was nothing left but mince meat.

And the good guys would not kill innocent women and children, would they?

I am not stupid enough to believe that the Americans were the only ones to commit these atrocities. But this war still affects people today, on both sides.

I saw many, many photos of gross birth defects and a slab of meat that was once human, that died from stepping on a land mine in 2004.

In the end the Yanks fled the country.

And the hammer and sickle, the symbol of communism, flies high and proud on this city’s buildings.

So, I am left wondering what, if anything, did this war achieve. And the more I ponder this question the less clear the answer seems to me.