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Published: December 23rd 2011
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Aoife and I arrived in Ho Chi Minh city, the largest city in Vietnam, on December 2nd after a brutal ten hour journey from DaLat. The city was formally known as Saigon, prior to the "fall of Saigon" or the "liberation of Saigon" depending on who is writing the history books. Saigon was the capital city of South Vietnam until April 30
th1975 when the city fell to North Vietnamese troops, marked by the storming of the presidential palace and the raising of the North Vietnamese flag. This was not long after the Americans jumped ship from a war that was proving more costly, in terms of money and lost lives, than the brains in Washington had ever imagined.
The traffic is brutal in HCM city, way worse than Hanoi. We spent nearly half an hour sitting on the bus at one set of traffic lights. When we finally arrived it was a bit of an ordeal finding a hotel that wasn't filthy and that was reasonably priced. We almost took one place but when they went downstairs with our passports we noticed the sheets were unchanged and there was mould in the presses. I went back downstairs to see if
there was another room but by the time we got back up Aoife had pulled back the blanket on the bed to find disturbing brown stuff on the inside of the blanket. It was rotten so we just got the hell out of there! After a few more failed attempts at finding a room we took a break at one of the bars for a beer to regroup and figure out where best to go. We were in the main bar district and the first vibe of the place was that it was a bit seedy. Old dodgy looking white lads with young Vietnamese girls type of seedy. We moved on fairly quickly and eventually found a place that was half way decent.
The following day, we went to the Independence palace and the war museum. The Independence palace, formally the Presidential palace, was where the North Vietnamese tank stormed the gates on April 30th 1975 to end the war and pave the way for a unified Vietnam. The palace has remained untouched since that date as a symbol of the final victory over what they now refer to as ‘the removal of the American puppet government’. They provide
free English speaking guides who give you a great run down on the history of the palace and the final years of the war. They showed us where a North Vietnamese pilot bombed the palace in 1974. The spots where two bombs went through the roof of the palace are marked in red (see photo). Ironically, the pilot went on to become a director of their state airline company.
The war museum is extremely detailed and the many graphic photographs depict the senselessness of war. One of the most famous photos known as “The girl in the picture” hangs there. The photo is of Kim Phuc, a 9 year old girl, running naked from a destroyed civilian village with severe burns from the napalm dropped from U.S. aircraft. Many argue that this picture was a turning point in public opinion against the war. We have since read the book on her life story and it is well worth a read. One really disturbing photo is of an American soldier holding up the remains of a blown up Vietcong soldier like a trophy. There was also a photo of a South Vietnamese General shooting a Vietcong soldier at point blank
range into the side of the head. There was so many gruesome photos including those from the My Lai Massacre where the U.S. soldiers of “Charlie Company” brutally massacred a whole village of around 300, mostly women and kids (including 18 pregnant women). Three American officers witnessing it happen from a chopper got dropped down and saved the lives of 17 people. Apparently, they suffered death threats when they returned to America. William Calley, the 24 year old lieutenant who led the 1st platoon, was the only person convicted of war crimes for his part in the massacre. He was found guilty of killing 22 villagers and given a life sentence. However, President Nixon made the decision to have him transferred from prison to house arrest pending his appeal. The crazy thing is that at the time, there was outrage among many state senators in the U.S. asking all State flags to be flown at half-mast for Calley. He only served three and a half years under house arrest before receiving a pardon from President Nixon.
The war was brutal on both sides, but the Vietnamese suffered a staggering loss of lives. It is estimated 3 million Vietnamese died
during the war, 2 million of which were civilians. The Americans suffered losses of around 58,000 still an extremely high casualty rate. One of the most destructive tactics used by the Americans was the spraying of the Vietnamese countryside with a chemical known as Agent Orange. It killed all the vegetation and crops but also most distressing is that kids are still been born with deformities as a result of this chemical. At the war museum they had kids there who were deformed from Agent Orange. An organisation looks after these kids and helps them to learn craft making skills to earn money. One victim had no eyes, just skin where his eyes should be. It was heartbreaking to see.
The next day we got a bus to the famous Cu-Chi tunnels, a huge underground network of tunnels located in the Cu-Chi district of Ho Chi Minh city. A guide was also provided and he was very informative. He was actually fairly funny as well, a subtle dry type of humour. The tunnels are testament to the determination of the Vietnamese. They lived underground for years; babies were even born down in the tunnels. Their intricate system, a great
engineering feat, allowed them to avoid detection by U.S. soldiers and attack at opportune times. They became ‘the enemy that could not be seen’, far different from the traditional battlefield warfare that the U.S. soldiers were actually trained for. The guide showed us the various forms of home-made weapons used by the Vietnamese. They were all brutal; the most well-known would be the sharpened bamboo sticks trap. The bamboo sticks were dipped in poisonous snake venom and hidden away under foliage. You could imagine the pain and suffering this weapon caused the unsuspecting soldiers. The soldiers who suffered the most on the front line were referred to as ‘the grunts’, the lowest ranking soldiers made to go on these “search and destroy” missions in the unknown terrain. A cause of outrage was that the majority of these “grunts” were the kids of poor white families and black families who were marginalised by the ‘great society’ they were fighting to protect.
At the Cu-Ci site they have a TV room where they play a propaganda video that was used during the war to motivate the people to kill the foreign invader. As you would expect it was very anti-American. It
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This was really funny when Aoife spotted a shirt that looked like mine when we were at breakfast. We then realised that all our laundry was hanging from the roof of a house. showed various Guerilla fighters and praised them for the number of “American devils” they had killed. At the site they have a captured U.S. tank on show that ran over a landmine during the war. The Vietnamese have kept captured U.S. aircraft and tanks as souvenirs of their victory. What I found strange was that there were loads of Americans climbing on the tank posing for photos. The sad reality is that U.S. soldiers (their countrymen) were probably killed during that landmine attack on their tank. It didn’t really seem appropriate. Another thing I found hard to get my head around is that they have a shooting range on the site of the Cu-Ci tunnels where you can shoot guns like M-16’s and AK-47’s. In a country where so many people were killed by these weapons, westerners were queuing up to buy bullets from the Vietnamese army, ‘to get the feel of what it’s like to shoot these guns’. One big fat white lad was in heaven, trying every kind of gun he could. Not my cup of tea!
For me, Ho-Chi Minh city is somewhere worth seeing more for the history than anything else. I was glad that
I’d read about the war before arriving there and hearing from the tour guides. It also helps to form an objective opinion on events. Overall we had a good time in HCM city but we were glad to be moving on to the more picturesque Mekong Delta.
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henry powell
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girl in the picture
As i look in that picture i felt hurt and anger in my heart, i am an american, i was also in army, but thats before my time, i love kids so much, i want to help all kids thats being abuse and mistreated, my vision in life if God premits me i s to help the abuse little girls thats bein rape and put on streets , i havae no money and i have no ideal how i will do that but if i can help 1 at a time when i can, i havent been to vietnam , but i help in the philippines feed , cloths , and build them a place to live but God help all the abuse kids that was in that war , and not only them but all that suffered from that war , may God help us all