Ho Chi Minh City's Reunification Palace and War Remnants Museum

 Ho Chi Minh' Reunification Palace and War Remnants Muscum  disgust Americans when they see how the other side viewed  the Vietnam War.

by Jack Corbett

Within walking distance of  our hotel are the Reunification Palace and War Remnants Museum both of which cannot fail to instill a much more complete and accurate sense of the Vietnam War it is nearly impossible to gain elsewhere.  To those old enough to have watched events unfold on television of the first war in History to be televised as it was taking place, the sight of Russian T-54 tanks storming through the palace gates is one likely to have been permanently etched into memory while the War Remnants Museum presents the "other side's view of the war" that is impossible to experience short of actually being there--at the museum that is.

Formerly known as the "American War Crimes Museum" prior to the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Vietnam, the museum presents what one might initially see as a one sided view of the war.  It does not show for example, V.C. patriots disemboweling village chiefs while forcing their wives and children to look on or forcing Vietnamese peasants to fight for the Communists.  But if does show the horrific effects of agent orange both on the Vietnamese countryside and the innocent victims who came into contact with it.  It shows pictures of napalm char broiled civilians who were unfortunate enough to fall into the path of American bombs.  There is the guillotine used by the French until 1960 to decapitate political prisoners.  And there are the tiger cages we used to read about in Time Life.  But reading about tiger cages is not the same thing as actually seeing them when images of what it must have been like to be actually forced to lie in one virtually beneath the bodies of one's fellow captives in impossibly confined quarters.   

Nevertheless, what is shown by the large three dimensional  graph comparing the tonnage of American bombs dropped during World War II to what was dropped during the Korean conflict and the Vietnam War cannot be denied.   Suddenly it becomes ever so clear that three times the tonnage of bombs was unleashed on this single little country, Vietnam, as was dropped on all theaters of World War II including Japan and Germany by American bombing formations of up to 1000 flying fortresses throughout four years of war.  Could all of that ever been worth it?  And to what ends?  To keep Vietnam and its neighbors non-Communist?   Just what did all those bombs cost the American economy in mere dollars alone that could have been spent on so many other things?   And that is not to even mention the human cost of over two million lives.  So what did it all amount to, keeping the Russians out?  

Ironically, Thailand furnished most of our airbases from which we could unleash all that destruction and I didn't see any Russians in either Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City.  But they sure as hell are taking over the swimming pool I often use at the hotel next to my condo in Thailand, like cockroaches in human form with their rude manners, cleaning off their shoes in the swimming pool, jumping in front of swimmers who are obviously swimming laps for their exercise, clogging up all the neighborhood Seven Elevens and Family Marts because they won't try to communicate with the Thais in Thai or in English or for that matter sign language. 

Yes, believe it or not, Russian now sends over more tourists to Thailand than any other country.  Meanwhile back in Vietnam, where the Communists did succeed in taking over the country with Russian and Communist Chinese help, you can't even buy a bottle of Russian vodka at the airport, but you sure can buy American Smirnov vodka, Johnny Walker Red and Johnny Walker Black Label Scotch whisky.  And now everything seems to be priced in American dollars before the Vietnamese start giving you the price in Vietnamese dong. 

Whatever happened to the Russian Ruble?  Yes---we Americans were responsible for the deaths of two million people while dropping three times as many bombs we dropped on Japan and Germany all to keep Vietnam from turning to the Communists who would much later on provide me with American Budweiser beer at Ho Chi Minh City's restaurants and bars and Marlboro cigarettes on every street corner.  Sure, Ho Chi Minh City's a Vietnamese City but since the reunification of Vietnam under Communism in 1975 it's finally starting to once again develop a certain American air about the place. 

I obtained the above picture from Wikipedia
The French designed palace

 Diem commissioned Independence Hall of today

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