Travel Stories - Vietnam

It is fortunately light when my alarm goes - it is 6:30 in the morning when I pack my bag and refresh myself. Downstairs in the hotel are the big iron front doors still locked and I am afraid to wake someone up but I have no other choice. The owner comes rushing in his morning garb and points out to the corner of the street where I indeed see some scooters. Armed with a piece of paper on which the Vietnamese "bus station" stands and a price I scribbled myself, I walk to the gentlemen who hang on their buddy seat in sleep modus. The man agrees with my price add gives me an egg-helmet. With tears in my eyes but awake, I arrive at the bus station and buy a bus ticket to "Quang Ngai" on the east coast. Foreigners pay about half more for the same ticket.

The route is breathtaking and finally meets my dream image of the country that has seen it all; emperors, foreign rulers and countless invasions. Rice terraces, small villages with wooden huts on stilts covered with reeds and a zigzag route through the green mountains. An old woman hunts a number of large water buffaloes with a small twig into the river to wash their bodies while I see a wicker cone hat on the land here and there. A multitude of flags and banners flutter in the wind at public buildings and schools, while a few piglets roll into the mud. As I look outside I think about the fact that I will soon visit one of the places where American soldiers slaughtered about 500 innocent Vietnamese civilians because of the Vietnam War. I’m on my way to one of the most controversiel cities in South-Vietnam; My Lay. 

The slaughter of “My Lay”: 

Via "Quang Ngai" I take a local bus to the peninsula where the village of "My Lai, Son My" is located. We pass a long low bridge and the bus comes to a standstill in front of the complex where I am about to step out. The complex is walled and after I have bought a ticket (10.000 VND) I walk straight to the big white monument of a woman with a clenched fist. Then I am received in the museum and asked if I would like to see some images on TV. They appear to have recorded an old Dutch TV program from 1993, in which an American helicopter pilot ("Thompson") has taken 13 people out of the blaze and goes back to hell in those days. In the museum there are pictures of how the village looked like before and after the the massacre, the victims, the perpetrators, documents about the order which came from above, the testimonies of eyewitnesses, the weapons, the methods, the slaughter itself. Interestingly, the 500 pounder dropped one month after the attack to cover up evidence; even the survivors of the village were immediately put into concentration camps. There is also a map of the communities that counted victims; Strangely enough, the place where most people died was never "known." We now know that soldiers must appease their consciences and start to open their mouths. A few weeks later the massacre was world news and a new scandal about the Vietnam War was born. One that did not remain without consequences, by the way.

The consequences:  

It is a green park where it seems like nothing ever happens - appearances are deceiving. The concrete foundations are still visible in various places where houses once stood. These have all gone through the so-called "zippo-squads" - American soldiers who used their lighter to light the dry reeds on the roofs of the Vietnamese huts. The division had only been in Vietnam for a few months and had already lost many soldiers. The young boys had been informed about an intake of a very hostile, Vietcong friendly, village where their friends had to be vexed. Nearly 200 innocent people of whom most old men, women and children were pushed into a ditch and cut down. The dredging ditch is located next to a path where Vietnamese footsteps are put next to (American) soldier boots. In addition to the concrete foundations there are information panels on which you can read who lived here and whether they survived the slaughter. The dead animals made of paper-mache may be a bit childish, but they indicate what happened here - nothing has been spared these people. A hut has been recreated to give an impression of how simple the peasant population of Vietnam lived before the Americans turned up. The whole thing is kinda strange because there are chickens on the field, the sun shines, the leaves of the palm trees and the green of the rice is so treacherous, the cows roar in the background. Children shout “hello” from their bikes when they see me walking on the path as if nothing was wrong or had ever happened. I’ve been to several places where the nazi’s during WW2 did similar things but this is the first time I see this from the Americans. I walk a long circle which once was a village and will never be the same again.