It is difficult to travel to Vietnam without encountering some reminder of its violent past. As a regular visitor to this beautiful and fascinating country, places like Hue, Quang Tri, Kon Tum, Khe Sanh, DMZ, etc bring to mind words and images of war that were part of a daily staple in my teens and 20’s. Consequently, my visits there always include the de rigueur visits to war museums and battlefields.
In the last few months I’ve visited museums, tunnels and terrain that were scenes of some of the most savage fighting in the twentieth century. All of them stand testimony to man’s inhumanity to man, to the fact that the greatest price is always paid by ordinary soldiers and civilians, and probably most poignantly of all, that all those sacrifices are forgotten with the march of time.
At the War Museum in Dien Bien Phu, two non-combat photographs taken during a lull in the fighting, struck me more deeply than any other.
The first showed women from some ethnic group serving food to Viet Minh guerrillas. The propaganda people who chose that photograph for display hadn’t noticed the look of fear and resignation on the face of the woman in front who had obviously been forced to sit on the lap of a soldier while he fondled her. Other soldiers leered at the women waiting behind her. The look of suffering and humiliation on her face struck me deeply. Truly in human conflict females always pay the greatest price. The women of the vanquished are always spoils for the victors. And when they’re from ethnic tribes or other marginalised people, they count for even less.
Whatever happened to the people in that photograph?
The second picture showed a couple of French soldiers staring blankly at the camera. The fatigue and utter despair on their faces leaped out of the picture. I couldn’t help wondering what was going through their minds knowing that they were completely surrounded and that their days were numbered. Were they reluctantly giving their lives for a cause they knew was unjust?
Whatever happened to the people in that photograph?
At the War Remnants Museum (renamed from the apt American War Crimes Museum) in Ho Chi Minh City the exhibits catalogued the murderousness of modern warfare. The high-tech barbarism of one side was being matched by the low-tech savagery of the other.
Equally moving was the exhibition of photographs taken by those who had lost their lives covering the war. None of the pictures glorified conflict.
Whatever happened to all the people in those photographs?
The only ones smiling in the photographs were the politicians and the generals, those people as far removed from the frontline as possible. Did they ever stop to think how many innocent lives would be snuffed out by their decisions, their blunders and their egos?
No leaders have the right to send their young men and women to lay down their lives on foreign battlefields, especially for causes that become meaningless a decade or two later.
When politicians wage war it should be mandatory for them to take up arms and lead their troops into battle, as rulers did in times gone by. Or they must be made to ensure that their sons and daughters are in the thick of fighting.
Then only may we spared the spectacle of a bird-brained braggart, donning a uniform he has brought shame to, leaping on the deck of an aircraft carrier and boasting prematurely, ‘Mission accomplished’.
COMMENTS
Jan
Yet again…
a la HEMMINGWAY…
Wonderful piece, so well written, that i felt as though i was with you on that trip. Almost like our trip to Delhi….(all of 40 years ago) maybe you remember??
take care mi amigo. mucha suerte!
Jansan
Jan
Lest I forget…
“You can’t say that civilization don’t advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way. ” – Will Rogers
Jansan
Jan
In closing….
“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?”
– Mahatma Gandhi
As you and your readers my see and hopefully understand….the Mahatma did ask the question.
Jansan
Jan
The first casualty of war is innocence…
Jansan
© Percy Aaron
Wow Laos 