History, Guns, and Squirts

We woke up relatively early on our second morning in Vietnam, and by relatively early I mean 5am, which is a time I haven’t woken up at for quite a while. It really made the day seem a lot longer waking up so early, who would have guessed? We headed to breakfast and stuffed ourselves, keeping up our healthy reputation as the American slobs at the breakfast table. The staff had begun to recognize us and the ones about our age had taken a liking to us. Clayton gave one kid the nickname Playboy, simply because we saw him carrying a box of glasses that had the word Playboy written on the side. He loved his nickname, but I am fairly sure he didn’t know what it meant.

After filling up, we headed to the War Remnants Museum, about a 10-minute walk from the hotel. We arrived without any real drama and paid our 15 Dong a piece to get in. We were immediately faced with a selection of different American vehicles left over from the war. I have decided to start adding pictures to this blog to give everyone stunning visuals for my vivid descriptions. I would prefer to let your minds run wild imagining what I am explaining, but I have a bunch of useless pictures on my phone, so why not post them?

Note my artistic talents in this picture of an American chopper.

We walked through a doorway into another outdoor section of the museum. This showed the imprisonment and torture techniques used by the Vietnamese during the war. Before I go too much into detail, lets confirm that this is a war remnants museum in the heart of the capital of communist Vietnam. The communists (north) were victorious, so this museum leans just a touch towards the north. To paraphrase, Americans are the devil and South Vietnamese were traitor rebels.

In this torture section they had tiger cages. These were very small barbed wire boxes where they would cram four or five Vietnamese for long periods of time. For the rest of our time in Vietnam we made sure to avoid breaking the law and get thrown in tiger cages. They showed us a typical cell of a prisoner, where the prisoner would be shackled tight to the middle of the room. I mentioned how hot Vietnam was earlier, but let me just reiterate. This was May 16^th, and it was hotter than a peak summer day in Central Florida. Humidity was through the roof. The combination of both the extreme heat and suffocating humidity really gave us a first hand idea of how ugly these prisons were. There would be numerous individual crammed in these tight cells, given minimal water in order to survive. Many would die of malnutrition and dehydration, but if they didn’t, they were put through a grotesque variety of torture techniques in order to reveal information they may or may not have known. 

Here are a few techniques that were mentioned in no apparent order. Breaking of arms and/or legs in order to stop prisoner from attempting to escape. Beating with different size sticks depending on the desired affect; the biggest was referred to as the death stick. Burning of the prisoner’s genitals or their entire body in general. Blinding and/or cutting the tongue out of a prisoner. Slowly amputating legs and/or individual fingers/toes. Shattering kneecaps and elbows. Burying the prisoner alive. 

I have to take a moment to apologize for this entry. It doesn’t have the lighthearted feel as the others. I will try my best to ease off on the negativity, but this museum deserves a real description. Brace yourselves; it is going to get a little rough.

I headed out of the torture section slightly light-headed—partly due to the torture techniques and their accompanied pictures, and partly due to the wicked heat I was enduring. The first floor of the museum was a general overview of the war and how horrible the Americans were. There were propaganda posters shooting down Nixon and honoring Cuba. There was a picture of a woman and a child crying in a damaged building with the following caption:

During the war, schools became targets of the US air force. On 25th September, 1965, bombs were dropped on Quynh Tien Primary and Secondary School, Quyhn Luu village, killed and injured many pupils and teachers. 

The caption was clearly biased. Well, at least I hope—there was plenty of shady stuff that happened during the Vietnam War. As soon as I finished reading this caption I heard children’s voices behind me, and a field trip of thirty or more Vietnamese six year olds headed into the museum. It was a strange experience.

After walking around the first floor reading horrible things and sweating my butt off, it was a relief to enter the air-conditioned second floor. The room was full of pictures of dead Vietnamese and remains of American uniforms and weaponry. The third floor was the worse; it was the Agent Orange section.

I am no history buff so bare with me here. Agent Orange was a form of chemical warfare used by the Americans in order to kill the vegetation that the enemies were hiding in, as well as kill the enemy in mass quantities. The side effects of Agent Orange were devastating: causing future mental illnesses, as well as extreme birth defects in the years that followed the war. There was even a section showing how these side effects affected American soldiers and their families after the war. The pictures of the physical deformities in Vietnamese children were horrifying.

The museum wasn’t packed; there were a variety of individuals of all ages and ethnicities. I did have this strange sense of individuals looking down on our group when they heard our American accents. Although understandable to an extent, the accusing looks were quite misdirected. First of all, technically I am British—a country that was not involved, and secondly I am in my twenties—not exactly an influence during the war. Also, although the Vietnamese call this the American War, there were plenty of other players involved that supported the South: Australia and New Zealand, Republic of China, Thailand, and the Philippines, amongst others.

I am not trying to defend the atrocities of this war, just expanding my knowledge on the subject. It is interesting that the group I was traveling with all went through the public education system in the US and barely knew anything of the details of the Vietnam War. There was a clear bias in the subject matter of the museum as well as a obvious bias in the way the war was taught to us—my idea of the war is now a blend of the two. History is fun.

After the war museum we departed on a journey to the Cu Chi tunnels, about fifty kilometers outside the city. The trip took about an hour and a half with all the traffic of the city. Our tour guide a tiny man—mid twenties—and our driver was an older Vietnamese guy with the craziest beard I have ever seen. It was very scraggly and long, a mix of grey and black, and he flipped it over his ears when he was hot. He also didn’t speak a word of English.

We arrived at the tunnels and walked into the forest. Our tour guide made us look for the entrance to the tunnels, I saw nothing. Suddenly a guy popped out of a small opening in the ground that was covered by leaves. It would have taken me 10-15 minutes to find this opening if I was looking for it, and I was given a small area to search in. I can’t imagine how the soldiers in the war found these invisible entrances. Here is a snap of Clayton squeezing into the entrance:

 

The next section was a variety of booby traps set by the North Vietnamese, either randomly in the forest or inside the tunnels. All were designed to maim a soldier, not kill. Many were designed so that once a soldier stepped on it; they couldn’t get out without seriously damaging their leg/torso, so the trap had to be carried with the soldier to the hospital.

We were next allowed to fire a gun of our choosing. I have never fired a real weapon before, and I fired an AK-47 in the forest of Vietnam. Felt like Rambo, minus the hundreds of bullets. Ten bullets to be exact; cost about a dollar per bullet. Tremendously powerful weapon, it was super loud even with our ear protectors. I can only imagine the hearing loss the soldiers must have endured.

Next we were led through a small section of the tunnel, I would say about fifteen yards. We had to hunch to almost crawling and be led through the near pitch dark tunnel. It was wicked hot down there—again, I can only imagine how hot it was to stay down there for long periods of time during the middle of a Vietnamese summer. We emerged after about one minute drenched in sweat, I guess only slightly more drenched than we already were.

We headed back to the car and rocked out with the driver to old school Santana on the way back. About an hour into the ride I started feeling a little funky in the belly. Wouldn’t you know; I made up the squirts competition, and I lose the squirts competition. It would have gone right through the screen door (sorry, my favorite euphemism). I should have knocked on wood and slapped a leprechaun. Ok, let's all laugh at Freddie, he got the Hershey Squirts first. Just keep it on the down low, I know most of my friends are borderline illiterate so they won't have read this far anyways. To those that have, congratulations.

The next day Robert and Clayton went to the Mekong Delta, I stayed home and hydrated myself back to health and ate Vietnamese mashed potatoes. The travelers sickness tablets we got before leaving did wonders. Thank goodness for them, don’t know if Pepto would have done the trick. The next day we were off to Bangkok to reenact the Hangover 2. Scorpions, monkeys, lady-boys, and Ping-Pong shows were all in the mix.

Until then..