South Vietnam - July 7, 2004
*** The war's true heros ****
After spending three days sick, curled up in a ball, feverish, and delirious, I finally recovered and went to the Cu Chi tunnels, the famous VietCong tunnel network southwest of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).
The Americans, in their infinite wisdom, built a massive base right on top of the tunnel network (despite the south vietnamese army warning them of this network's existence), and then couldn't figure out for a full year why their infantry kept getting shot and killed at night. My tour guide was a former south vietnamese soldier who had fought alongside the americans and had been condemned for seven years in a "re-education" concentration camp after vietnamese reunification. He told us some pretty scary stories of being stuck in the jungle for two weeks, waiting for the american choppers to come rescue him. After those two weeks, he spent four months in the hospital, recovering from all manner of infections.
"99% of American soldiers were high on heroin," he claimed.
Before we could crawl through the (widened for tourists) tunnels, we had to watch a propaganda movie which intoned "The imperialist American Devils could not overcome the patriotic pride of the VietCong. The foreign cowards found themselves fighting our glorious peasant women, who went to school during the day and fought bravely by night. The true heros of the American Imperial War of Conquest was the Vietcong woman. Young, beautiful, and true to her country, she killed and maimed thousands of american enemies and drove the invading criminals from her land."
The tunnels were an experience. Well camouflaged (i was standing on top of an entrance and didn't even know it), they were damp, dark, and small. Even though they had been widened, I found them extremely claustrophobic. As I crawled the 150m (I was the only one of the tour group who did the entire length), large bats brushed against my face and water dripped on my hands. I emerged gasping for air, covered in sweat, and somewhat wild-eyed.
I ended the day by visiting the American War Crimes museum. This relatively small museum contained thousands of photos mainly taken by Western photographers. Most of the photos had been censored by the American Military, but were proudly displayed here to chronicle many of the atrocities commited by American soldiers. Some of the more graphic photos showed americans tying up and dragging suspected Vietcong sympathisers behind jeeps or tanks. Another one showed a grinning soldier giving the thumbs up as he held up two decapitated heads. The bodies were also in the picture. Others showed american soldiers killing old men, old women, and babies. There were also hundreds of pictures of deformed babies who had succumbed to the ill-effects of agent orange. Overall, quite a sobering experience.
After spending three days sick, curled up in a ball, feverish, and delirious, I finally recovered and went to the Cu Chi tunnels, the famous VietCong tunnel network southwest of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).
The Americans, in their infinite wisdom, built a massive base right on top of the tunnel network (despite the south vietnamese army warning them of this network's existence), and then couldn't figure out for a full year why their infantry kept getting shot and killed at night. My tour guide was a former south vietnamese soldier who had fought alongside the americans and had been condemned for seven years in a "re-education" concentration camp after vietnamese reunification. He told us some pretty scary stories of being stuck in the jungle for two weeks, waiting for the american choppers to come rescue him. After those two weeks, he spent four months in the hospital, recovering from all manner of infections.
"99% of American soldiers were high on heroin," he claimed.
Before we could crawl through the (widened for tourists) tunnels, we had to watch a propaganda movie which intoned "The imperialist American Devils could not overcome the patriotic pride of the VietCong. The foreign cowards found themselves fighting our glorious peasant women, who went to school during the day and fought bravely by night. The true heros of the American Imperial War of Conquest was the Vietcong woman. Young, beautiful, and true to her country, she killed and maimed thousands of american enemies and drove the invading criminals from her land."
The tunnels were an experience. Well camouflaged (i was standing on top of an entrance and didn't even know it), they were damp, dark, and small. Even though they had been widened, I found them extremely claustrophobic. As I crawled the 150m (I was the only one of the tour group who did the entire length), large bats brushed against my face and water dripped on my hands. I emerged gasping for air, covered in sweat, and somewhat wild-eyed.
I ended the day by visiting the American War Crimes museum. This relatively small museum contained thousands of photos mainly taken by Western photographers. Most of the photos had been censored by the American Military, but were proudly displayed here to chronicle many of the atrocities commited by American soldiers. Some of the more graphic photos showed americans tying up and dragging suspected Vietcong sympathisers behind jeeps or tanks. Another one showed a grinning soldier giving the thumbs up as he held up two decapitated heads. The bodies were also in the picture. Others showed american soldiers killing old men, old women, and babies. There were also hundreds of pictures of deformed babies who had succumbed to the ill-effects of agent orange. Overall, quite a sobering experience.
posted by Ace at 12:33 PM
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