Advertisement
Published: February 24th 2016
Edit Blog Post
I don't know why I bought them. The two guys with baskets of metal objects on the site of Khe Sanh hounded me from the moment I set foot in the area. They had coins and medals and bullet casings and fragments of war. One had a 1976 penny. Obviously, he had picked it up from somewhere else, not here, on the flat open area where Americans and Vietnamese fought a prolonged battle in 1968.
Khe Sanh. The name of the site barely scratched my memory. I was 14 years old, in a world and mindset away from the war happening in this distant land. I remember the TV news people talking about the Tet offensive, but I was so young and unaware. Something about the Vietnamese new year starting. But back then, their holiday signaled the beginning of a concentrated fighting effort by North Vietnam in many cities in South Vietnam. It happened just as the battle of Khe Sanh started heating up, where the US had sent many more troops, believing that there would be a massive assault on the US controlled base.
I hardly knew the location of Vietnam back then. I did know that young
men were being sent here to fight.
For what? The scourge of communism, as I remember. Young men were sent to the American base at Khe Sanh in early 1968, a place to be held at all costs. And so it began, on January 21, 1968, a near constant barrage of artillery and mortar fire, gun shots, even hand-to-hand combat at times. The US dropped over 100,000 tons of bombs in the surrounding area. And while the US was preoccupied with holding on to Khe Sanh, North Vietnam launched the Tet offensive on major cities in South Vietnam.
I did not know all this history as I strolled the now quiet grounds. I just knew that the Americans had fought Vietnamese soldiers in this place. Sand bagged bunkers dot the area, US Army helicopters and an airplane rest quietly on what once was the landing strip. I did not sense the tremendous violence, fear, misery, and loss that had pervaded the area.
The museum describes the 'helpless" Americans as they fought against the onslaught. They and South Vietnam and Lao allies held on to the site, more or less, until June. But in the end, the US
pulled out, salvaged what they could, and destroyed the rest.
For Americans and their allies, there were 12,000+ casualties, including 2,800-3,500 killed, 9,000+ wounded, 7 missing, 250+ captured. For North Vietnam, there were unknown casualties, but 1602 bodies were counted, and 10,000-15,000 were initially estimated as killed in action. Another estimate was less, at 5,550 killed in action.
Both sides claimed victory.
And so as I wandered the grounds, the two guys with bits of metal came back to me over and over. I could have bought the "rifle marksman" medal dropped by an American soldier. I could have bought the 1976 penny. But I didn't. I bought two five pointed star medals, each light as a feather, each inscribed with Vietnamese words and the flag of North Vietnam.
I can only guess about their owners. Young men, with mothers and fathers and siblings praying for their safety and their success in fighting the Americans. Young men, running alongside their comrades, determined to beat the Americans in this the American war in their country, in their place. Perhaps they experienced some thread of connection as they battled the American soldiers, far from their native country, and
perhaps, just for a moment, they shared doubts about their individual roles in the conflict, and glimpsed a common humanity, a common desire for peace and goodness.
Perhaps.
I don't know why I bought them. I just know the dark feeling in my heart that these medals hold. Light as a feather, but they feel so dense.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.184s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 13; qc: 75; dbt: 0.0955s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb