What the hell are we fighting for?

Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam

Today I visited the War Remnants Museum, the final stop on my list of places to visit in Viet Nam in order to learn more about the war from the other side. I didn’t imagine it to be much more difficult to see than Hiroshima, but I was wrong. There was an entire room dedicated to victims of Agent Orange including Vietnamese soldiers, American GIs, and their subsequent offspring. It was found that once the chemical is in your system, it can affect also affect your unborn children so generations later, families are still feelings the effects of the war.  There were also pictures of victims of the bombings and of the massacres that occurred throughout the country. There was also a collection of before and after pictures of cities that were destroyed during the war and photos of how they look now. This display was a beacon of light in an otherwise dark and dismal place. I found myself returning to this display for a second time at the end of my visit in order to end on some semblance of a happy note, if you can call it that.

My initial thought was after seeing these pictures was, “How could we ask these kids to do these awful things?” Or rather, “How could we draft these kids and tell them that this is what they HAVE to do?” Seeing pictures of the death and destruction in what was ultimately a lose-lose situation was, as an American, incredibly challenging. It was awful and appalling, shocking and sickening all at the same time. While this was an intentionally one sided story, I have now seen both sides and the story didn’t end well for anyone. It was arguably one of the hardest things I’ve ever seen.

One of my goals while in Viet Nam was to learn about the war from the other side and I feel like I’ve done that during my time here. The Vietnamese people are very open and honest about their experiences and, surprisingly, no one I met seems to hold a grudge against Americans. So I suppose the best I can do is to take this experience, learn as much as I can, and move on in a positive direction, much like the people I met during my time in Viet Nam. While it is certainly not a part of our history that we’re proud of, this is as much a part of my history as an American as it is of theirs and it doesn’t have to define us as a nation.