Shopping & Museum

After recovering from the food poisoning, which I believe came from the ice in my drink at lunch that day, I managed to go out to Dong Khoi street and do some shopping mid-day Friday. The Vietnamese silk is just gorgeous and I fell in love with so much of their art as well; they are very well-known for their lacquer work, but it is very expensive. Everything else, however, was very cheap! I bought some of the usual souvenirs (I already have birthday and Christmas gifts for all my family by now) - but one store caught my eye. I was looking in their display case and saw what looked like American GI dog tags from the Vietnam War. I asked if I could look at them - she had about 15 of them on a chain. Years ago, I had watched a Dateline special that featured 2 Vietnam Vets who were telling their story of returning to Vietnam to find that American GI dog tags from the Vietnam War were being sold in stores here and there. They essentially bought up all the ones they could find and were returning the dog tags to the families of the men that they belonged to back in the States. I remembered this story because it touched me and as I was looking at all those dog tags in this store, I decided I would buy one to see if I could return it to a family back home. Well, after looking through all of them - you can't just pick one - so I bought all of them! I obviously have a LOT of work on my hands to see what I can do to find the families or send them to an organization that will return them to the families for me ... whichever will work, but it was an emotional experience for me that I won't forget. I do believe they are authentic, if they are not - no worries - but I couldn't leave them there, it just didn't feel right to me. It was a moment of reality for me, that is for sure. After a bit of shopping, I headed towards the War Museum, or as it used to be called, the "Museum of American War Crimes" - if that tells you anything. Yep, it is basically a museum that shows all the atrocities that the Americans did to the Vietnamese during the Vietnam War ... one-sided doesn't even begin to describe it. Now, you have to understand my view about war and a bit of my political views before reading on - so I suggest you stop now if you are sensitive to those sort of things. I am just going to be honest and tell you what I saw and how it made ME feel - you can make your judgements accordingly if you'd like, it's up to you. I admit that there were horrible things that the Americans did to the Vietnamese; however, war is 2-sided and I think that it should be obvious that there were atrocities committed by the Vietnamese towards the Americans too. A lot of the stuff I saw didn't really phase me - I have a very pragmatic opinion about war - I know it is evil and submits people to the worst possible conditions by which anyone could or should be subjected to; however, I feel it has been around as long as man and it is inevitable as long as mankind is going to still be around. Granted we should do everything possible to prevent/avoid war, but I do think that is certain cases is it necessary and justified. I looked at pictures of smiling American GIs holding the heads of Vietnamese soilders they had killed - this would disgust many people - I agree that it is disgusting, but it is war ... kill or be killed I figure. I refuse to judge any soilder who was being hunted on a constant basis - I cannot say myself that I would be in the 'right' state of mind under those horrible conditions to know what kind of monster I could turn into. Anyways, I felt more sadness when I was there because of the fact that the entire war even had to take place. I do find it interesting that the Vietnamese believe they are the only ones who have ever defeated the Americans (even though we lost the Korean War, it was the Chinese who came down into North Korea to help preserve communism and defeat our military forces that were well on their way to taking care of the North Korean army on their own). Some of you already know certain things about the Vietnam War; however, I didn't know or remember specific facts - there are a few that I learned that I thought were extremely interesting. For example, I didn't know that we were not allowed to cross into North Vietnam during the war. We could fight the war only on the grounds of South Vietnam; therefore, the North Vietnamese could essentially fight us and then run behind the lines and we were not able to attack them once they passed back over the border. It was also the first war that had reporters with video cameras embedded in with the troops. These pictures of war that were shown back at home were what triggered the huge anti-war movement and the terrible treatment of Vietnam Vets when they returned from fighting in Vietnam.