HCMC War Remnants Museum

I am in Saigon, a city that conjures up many different words: chaotic, exotic, war. Also known as Ho Chi Minh City, this city of 6 million people (and just as many motorbikes) has seen two different external presences in the past century alone. Though the largest city in the country of Vietnam has fought off colonization and war, it seems to have bounced back. In what I have seen thus far, no trace of resistance or war can be found.
Today was my first day in Saigon and we decided to do the heavy stuff first: the War Remnants Museum. Upon first walking in I was impressed by the size of the museum and the many large American weapons including tanks and helicopters that filled the front courtyard of the 3-storey open-aired museum. Upon entering the museum you are greeted by a survivors of Agent Orange counter to the left, where severl victims are making various crafts. My mood instantly changed and I realized that this is not a museum to look at cool war relics, but to understand what actually happened to the Vietnamese people.

The museum is a memoriam for the people who fought in the Vietnam (here known as the American) War, as well as the millions of civilians who died during it. For anyone, it is a hard museum to visit, as it shows the suffering that the Vietnamese people went through during the war, and the horrors that still linger from it today. As an American, it was even harder. It is a place were I constantly thought to myself, “I am NOT proud to be an American,” though I was not even alive when this war took place, nor there is nothing I could have done about it had I been.

guillotine left by the French

Though I have been reading books about the Vietnam War and knew about the mass casualties of war, it was extremely upsetting to hear it from the opposite side. Children had to go to school in underground tunnels so they could be safe from bombs. Farmers were pulled out of their homes by American soldiers while their families begged for them not to be killed. Entire villages were destroyed. Agent Orange, the most destructive chemical ever discovered by man, was used in mass quantities and still has effects on Vietnamese children born today. It is incredible that humans can destroy on such a macro level; but these weren’t just any humans, these were Americans. It was especially hard going through the museum and seeing words like "genocide" and "misconduct of war" being used, especially after visiting the killing fields and seeing the devastation senseless killing can cause.

The most terrible thing about this is, there are many things that we do not know about the Vietnam war and never will know because the government has covered up or destroyed the documents with the proof that they carried out such horrific orders. I do not want to think of the terror that is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq, and what sorts of museums will commemorate and reveal about these “wars on terror” 30 years from now. The saddest thing to me is that the Vietnam war is glossed over for many Americans. We only focus on the terrible things that happened to our own soldiers, but rarely do we delve into the catastrophes we caused in Vietnam. Though history is often written by the winner, the United States, though the loser, has successfully ignored the damage done to the country where the war was actually fought.

Argentinian poster against the war. That's
Nixon on that plane.

Though Vietnam went through such a devastating war and is still picking up the pieces, it is impossible for me to imagine a Saigon where tanks were rolling through, bombs were going off, and American soldiers were everywhere. The city is bustling, clean, and has several parks. There’s a statue of Ho Chi Minh in the center of the upscale shopping district, surrounded by retailers such as Chanel, Hugo Boss, and Burberry. Though Vietnam has seen horrors, Saigon certainly has its own personality that is ready to move on from the devastation of war.