Living just south of the DMZ (demilitarized zone), it was hard to get through a day without thinking about the Vietnam War – or as they call it, the American War. It didn’t take much to put it on my mind. Every time a Vietnamese person simply asked me where I was from, I would pause for a second before answering. However, only on one occasion did the asker laugh and pretend to use a machine gun in response.
As I mentioned in my first blog post about Vietnam, Khe Sanh, the town where Hannah and I taught in for a month, is known for the battle that took place there. It lasted 5 months and 18 days and resulted in over 12,000 casualties. Near the entrance of the town is a massive statue of Viet Cong soldiers wielding AK-47s, and scattered around the area are war monuments, memorials, museums, and other historical places related to the war. Even when we headed on vacation at the end of our time teaching, we happened to go rock climbing on a tiny island with an ammunitions storage cave on it. Remnants of the war were truly everywhere – and while fascinating – I really didn’t like the constant reminders.
When the other English teachers, all “children of the peace” as they call themselves, since they were born after the war, took us out to dinner in the mountains one night, they had us stop to look at a Northern Vietnamese tank. “Do you want a picture with it?” they innocently asked, as if it was something fun worth Instagramming. I awkwardly, yet politely, declined, and went back to thinking about how many people were killed by this exact tank. Later Hannah calmed me by informing me it was just a replica, but the sadness had already creeped in.
On our own, Hannah and I visited Ta Con Airfield, an American airbase, a mere 20 minute drive from our homestay in Khe Sanh. I expected it would be an intense morning, and it was. There, old US planes and tanks sit rusting next to an ugly museum building, but in front of beautiful, lush farmland and mountains. Within minutes of arriving, a Vietnamese man asked me to take his picture in front of an American fighter jet. As I was silently walking around, trying to take it all in, every now and then a peddler would approach me to sell me dog tags or pins they “found” (apparently sometimes they’re real, sometimes fake). Though I can’t blame them for trying to make a little money, I couldn’t help but think how insensitive it was – What if someone in my family fought in this war? Why are you interrupting people’s experiences in such a serious place to try to sell them things potentially taken off a fallen soldier? This, combined with the selfies being taken with machines once used to murder people, pushed me to the outskirts of the airfield.
As I peered into a bunker, red ants bit at my feet – a sign from the universe, I suppose, telling me bad things happened here. Walking through the trenches, I thought back to a speaker my Peace Studies professor once brought in during my last semester of university. A Vietnam veteran turned homeless man, he told us about the many atrocities he’d witnessed. To “help” soldiers deal with the trauma of war, the US government gave them heroin, which he, and many others, became addicted to. He brought his addiction back home with him and lost absolutely everything. Despite risking his life to fight for our country, he received no support from the government and was totally ignored by the rest of society, just left on the streets to deal with his PTSD and drug habit alone.
I also thought about the story of the Black Vietnamese man my host told me about. A US soldier likely raped a Vietnamese woman, who then gave up her child. An ethnic minority couple adopted the unwanted boy, raising him as their own, but of course with few resources. He is illiterate and speaks not a word of English, and he has faced a great deal of racism for the color of his skin. He is now married with kids, but he cannot afford to send his children to school.
For both these men, the war defined their entire lives. For victims of Agent Orange even two generations later, the war defined their entire lives. For all the unsuspecting people who accidentally picked up an active UXO (unexploded ordinance) years after the fighting had ceased, the war defined their entire lives. For all the sex trafficking victims in Southeast Asia who were originally put in high demand by American soldiers, they may not realize it, but the war defined their entire lives.
Reading captions like “US marines shutting themselves in bunkers for fear of their own shadows” on old photographs in the adjacent museum, I thought of all the American military servicemen and the hopelessness they likely felt. A bunch of young men killing and dying for a cause they didn’t believe in, didn’t understand, or at the very least would never benefit from. I thought of all the innocent Vietnamese civilians killed and all the families on both sides who lost someone. It made me feel sick.
But I also thought about how significant it was that I was now there teaching about cross-cultural understanding and peace. If that wasn’t proof of progress, I don’t know what is. Hannah and I were welcomed with open arms, and by the end of our short time there, there were some pretty tough goodbyes. With the type of work that I am doing and hope to do in the future, I want to believe that by simply humanizing other groups of people for children, there will be less conflict, and thus less suffering, in the future.
I walked very slowly through the small labyrinth of trenches and bunkers, and at each dead-end wild flowers had started to grow. As sappy as this makes me sound, I saw it as a metaphor for the hope I have that even from the most horrific of mistakes, we can learn and grow into something beautiful. Vietnam is certainly much more than its bloody history and resulting system of government, but it did give me a lot to think about during our time there. I will remember seeing both the dark, damp, creepy rooms of a makeshift war-era cave hospital, but also the brightest, most pure smile from the little girl I passed on my way home from the middle school every day – who had nothing but love to give to any stranger who passed. “What’s your name?” I would ask. And in response she’d bounce over to me, hug my legs, giggle, and shout, “wasyurname!” as loud as she could. As she grows up, I hope that she is taught peace.
