War Museum: Saigon

Tears flowed freely while walking through the photo documentation of the atrocities of the war. From pictures of destroyed buildings and hospitals and schools, to mutilated and decapitated bodies being dragged from the back of US jeeps, to the first, second, and now third generation victims from the affects of Agent Orange was almost unbearable.

After seeing photos identifying Agent Orange maladies, I can flip easily through my head the actual people I have seen throughout my time here, suffering from the same. Before I came to Vietnam, I read a book on the escape of Vietnam refugees, the boat people, struggling to find refugee status from inside the detainment camps around south east Asia. Since I have been here, I have been reading Denise Chong's "The Girl in the Picture." This book gives the personal account of one of the victims of friendly bombing, Phuc, whose picture was taken and circulated through worldwide media, permanently changing her life. The book uses this lens, through which to describe some of the atrocities of war and the subsequent communist lifestyle, imposed after southern Vietnam fell.

Reading the book gave a new dimension of comprehension to this museum, and to the location of military movements through Vietnam, including the Khmer Rouge battles post-American involvement.
The horror and fear these people were put through is agonizing to even think about. No wonder it has been an issue primarily skirted throughout US schooling.

Walking around, I feel lucky to be and lucky to breathe, lucky to have my skin in typically normal places, and lucky I have never been holding, or at the tip of a bayonette. I once again, feel lucky and greatful to have the opportunity to write and blessed to know all of you.

Today, an old man saw me walking, gave me his chair, and made me a cafe suda (a very strong, sugary coffee). He stayed and watched me read for a while. It was very sweet.

It reminded me of getting of the airport in Saigon. I got off the plane, and an old woman grabbed my hand. We held hands walking through the airport to our baggage, and I helped her load everything onto the cart. Walking out, she tried to usher me onto her motorbike, but I already had a ride. She was like a smooth aperitif guiding me sweetly and lovingly into the city.