Old DMZ and surrounding areas

It was pouring rain when we woke up today. The rain set the mood for what turned out to be a pretty difficult day. Before I go any further, I want to make sure that you know that these are only my views and that if you are offended in anyway by the way I feel or how I word things, I apologize for you feeling that way, but not for the way that I feel. Again, speaking only for myself - war is not pretty and the fact is things get destroyed and people do die. There is suffering on both sides. I'm not going to begin to address why the U.S. military was in Vietnam, but I will say that those that were in Vietnam or were part of the military mission in that area of the world, didn't get the support that they deserved. I am proud to say that my Dad served in the U.S. Navy during that time and though I know very little about what he went through over there, I know that he served his country honorably, like so many other military members did. Today was the first day that I was faced with the Vietnam perspective of what went on, and it was tough. When the picture captions called the Americans enemies and all kinds of other things, it was hard not to take it personally. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong weren't just trying to protect their country and doing so by killing Americans, they were trying to kill my Father, and for that reason, I had a hard time looking at this stuff objectively and without prejudice. So, knowing that it was hard to be neutral - here is what happened today. We headed north from Hue to the Quang tri region of Vietnam. We first visited where the Old Citadel was. Everything had been destroyed, so what buildings were there were built afterwards. There was a small musuem with pictures and the pictures were really really disturbing. The captions only made them worse with the Viet Cong being the liberators and the Americans being the enemy. Though I didn't like what I saw or read, it made me think about our museums back in the U.S. with war items and pictures. There are always at least two sides to every story - and even if you don't like the other side or it makes you mad or uncomfortable - there is always that other side. Here is part of how I perceived the other side saw the U.S. - their country was invaded by people half way across the world and tried to prevent the unification of your country by force. I had thought of this before, like when the Germans invaded France, or when the Japanese invaded the U.S., but never before had I faced a recount of the U.S. "invading" another country and seeing the other country's interpretation of it all. I'm sure you can all tell, just how hard of a time I still have with what I saw - almost 40 years after the fact. Our guide focused on the fact that the Viet Cong held this area for 81 days and was so proud. I never got the sense that any of the Vietnamese hated Americans, they were all pretty friendly actually. One guide, our Ho Chi Minh City guide actually said that 1) the Vietnamese have moved on and just want to live a happy life and 2) it was the U.S. Government not the people who supported the conflict. We got back in the car and went north and saw the beginning of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and a bridge that Fidel Castro donated to Vietnam. We continued west on route 9 to Khe Sahn. Here was a place that the U.S. had a base back in the late 1960s. All that was here was a small museum and some old aircraft. I wouldn't have known it had been a base if I wasn't told. It was sad and somewhat disturbing. Again, the pictures and their captions in the small museum were anti-U.S. and hard to read. The worst thing about this place was there were two men selling souvenirs including dog tags. It made me really mad. I don't know if they were purporting that these were from back in the 1960s or what, but if they were, even if they were fake, it is a symbol of some one's life and if they were found - that pretty much meant only one thing - that person was deceased. When you go into a combat situation, your dog tags are one of those essential items you must have at all times. I had to have 2 sets in Iraq. Anyway, it made me angry and is sickening. We then started on our way to the Vinh Moc Tunnels. We passed an American monument (the only one I saw) but was strange was that it didn't have a plaque or any inscriptions. The roads were lined with rice fields, water buffalo, egrets, cows, dogs, chickens, bikes, and motorbikes. The scary thing was that even though the roads were really wet from the rain, our driver drove like it was dry. We also stopped at the Ben Hai river, near the 17th parallel. This was the dividing part between North and South Vietnam. On the North side of the river there was a speaker system facing the South which supposedly blasted propaganda into the South asking them to join the North. There was also another small museum with some disturbing captions along with an exhibit with American planes on fire and the Viet Cong making a U.S. pilot a POW. It was really hard to see all of this in one day. We got to Vinh Moc where we got to see the tunnels that the villages had dug in order to survive the bombing. The village was just north of the DMZ, so it was pretty much destroyed. 350 people lived in the tunnels for 6 years. The tunnels had 3 levels at different depths with the first and highest level being the living level. I had (of course) mixed thoughts about these tunnels. The type of damage caused by a B-52 is the reason these people had to live underground, and maybe, these people were just caught in the middle, BUT on the other hand, maybe these people were helping kill Americans, or giving support to the Viet Cong. What a tough day.