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Published: April 8th 2011
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We were up dark and early and out the door by 6am for the DMZ tour. I know little about history in Vietnam or the Vietnam War, as my formal education taught me nothing; I was always too overwhelmed to study it on my own.
We met our group and drove for a few hours in the cool, misty morning air. Our plan was to start north of the DMZ before lunch and the southern part after lunch. It's a strange feeling, driving over a line you can't see, but that you know used to be so significant. We would have missed it if not for the small flags marking it on the side of the road.
We went to a small museum with some Viet Cong tunnels. There are three levels in the tunnels: the first was for the army; the second was for families and for living in; the third was for supplies and munitions. We toured the second level. I was surprised I could stand in most of it, but I think that the other levels may have been shorter, or they just made this one larger because of the tourists. I was surprised how tiny
the rooms were! It's hard to imagine whole families down there, groups of fifty or more meeting, or women giving birth in such cramped quarters. The family rooms and birthing rooms were smaller than the closet I had as a child, perhaps the same length but not as tall. We had been told everything we would see (not realizing a guide was coming with us) and were a bit panicked, but we all relaxed and just followed the person in front of us, careful to not bump our heads. We finally emerged by the South China Sea before going back in and out on the other side.
After a less-than-satisfying lunch we toured the south. We saw the Rock Pile--which is actually a small mountain--that the Americans airlifted supplies to the top of and on which about twelve airmen lived. The view from the top went for miles in every direction. We drove by a minority village with houses on stilts enroute to the museum at Khe san.
Khe San was the site of a major US base and some consider the battle fought there to be the turning point in the war. Our guide told us how
the war affected her family. Her mother's side was from the south and her father's from the north. She said they don't talk about who won because, really, they all lost. We all did. We had a moment of silence for all the MIA soldiers from both sides before continuing with the museum. Outside there were some helicopters and a plane and bombs. The airfield had also been reconstructed and was full of red mud. There were a few war vets in my group and I found myself wondering about their thoughts and feelings, knowing it must be different from my own; they might have a personal or emotional connection to this place and I do not. I could really feel the sadness in the place, we all could--you could see it in our faces.
We made one last stop at a bridge that marked the beginning of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. I was trying to figure out which way the trail went but had no luck. (Our guide told us that the trail wasn't concrete--it wasn't a specific course, but rather a general path to follow.) Locals stared at us, perhaps wondering why we were staring at
a bridge on such a cold, windy day.
On the ride back to Hue I noted how so many of the trees were planted in perfect rows, like a grid. All were fairly young looking, maybe 10-30 years old depending on the field. Time heals the land.
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