Thoughts from the Tunnels

December 29, 2009

Today I traveled to the Chi Chun Tunnels. My tour guide was Mr. Hoang. His father had helped the Americans. He was a great tour guide. He told us such eye opening and real stories. He and his family are one of the Boat people who tried to escape Vietnam once Communism took over. They sold all their belongings to get on a boat ride to travel to Hong Kong. That’s what they were hoping to do; however, they got lost and were at sea for many days with little water and food. Finally the Vietnamese Coast Guard picked them up. They were put in prison. He was five years old and he was put in prison for 2 weeks. His mother was put in prison for 2 months and his father for 5 months. He was the only child in prison and stayed with the women.

When I first walked out to look at the port of Saigon and take in the scenery I was filled with emotion. I was thinking of my fellow Americans who fought on this land and died. Going to the tunnels and finding out more about the war from the Vietnamese perspective was interesting. We watched a 1967 video about the tunnels. They called Americans devils for killing women, children, chickens, etc. The children whose parents were killed by the American bombing joined the forces to attack and fight against America. These were young girls. The video named several who had killed many Americans and were given war awards. At first I was feeling rather guilty, but then listening to the tour guide he gave the perspective of how there was another side in Vietnam that didn’t want the communism, because this video made it seem like all of Vietnam wanted communism.

Walking through the jungle and looking at the tunnels and seeing the terrible traps the Vietnamese would set for the Americans made me shudder and feel sick. My heart hurts that there is such a thing as war. It seems that war is basically about ideology. I know it is more complicated than that, but I see America as trying to preserve democracy and communism appeared a threat. I see today America trying to preserve something that I’m not sure what it is—to me it seems a battle of ideology between Christianity and Islam. I don’t know if my take on it is accurate, but this is what I’m thinking as I’m processing everything I’m seeing. There is oil in Vietnman, too. There is oil in Iraq, Kuwait. Does America usually fight a war if there are spoils of oil to be had? What dictates America’s foreign policy?