Chu Chi Tunnels

1/16/2010
Chau Doc, Vietnam

This morning we went for a tour of the Chu Chi tunnels. It's part of what was once called the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a series of tunnels created by the Viet Cong that stretched 150km (I think) and covered quite a wide area leading into Saigon. The trail allowed the Viet Cong army to travel from North Vietnam to South Vietnam via Laos and Cambodia.

One of the first things you do when you arrive is watch a documentary about the making of and the use of the trail. Wow. Pretty propagandist – the Evil American Devils, etc. I'm sure it was made a long time ago; at least I hope it was. The tunnels were begun during the 1950s when the Vietnamese were fighting with the French and utilized during the American involvement as well. More than just tunnels, there were areas that were essentially underground cities, where the entire population could hide. The Viet Cong would hide in the tunnels during the day, then come out at night to set trip bombs and booby traps. There was a display that showed the various pits and traps that they made using sharpened bamboo spikes and cylinders studded with long metal pikes. Crude, but very effective.

It was a strange feeling to be there watching how other people reacted. To them it was just some old battlefield and people were laughing and posing with a rusted out U.S. tank and lining up for a chance to shoot off American and Russian made weapons, etc. Our Vietnamese guide was explaining how things worked and how brave and clever “our soldiers” were and of course kept referring to "The Americans" as the enemy and mentioning the horrible things they did. Which of course is true – in a war, both sides of the conflict do terrible things that would never be considered during peace time. His enthusiasm for the bloodletting was really uncomfortable for me. He was a very young man, and those events were well before his time. I’m guessing he’s just repeating the version he learned in school, just as we would repeat the version we learned, albeit a little more objectively I would hope.

As I listened to our guide and watched the reaction of our fellow group members (who were from Sweden and Denmark and England and Australia), I thought this must be what it’s like when Japanese tourists visit Pearl Harbor. I’ve seen them there and they go out to visit the USS Arizona Memorial and they read the displays recounting the unprovoked attack by the aggressive and militaristic Japanese. It’s crossed my mind that it must be a strange feeling for them to visit that place, but it wasn’t until now that I feel that I can actually understand a bit of what they must experience. Their lives now are so removed from that time that, in some ways, it doesn’t even seem possible that those events could have happened.

So I found our visit to the Chu Chi Tunnels very disconcerting and uncomfortable. All I could think of was all the Vietnam Vets that have struggled with alcohol and drug abuse and depression and flashbacks and all the other terrible after effects of their participation in that conflict. I wanted to shout out to our group “it was no picnic for our guys either!” I looked at the booby traps and I could not marvel at their ingenuity; I could only imagine our young men dying in them. The Viet Cong were clever and small and quiet and committed to protecting their country from what they saw as an immoral and illegal invasion of their sovereign country. When you see the complexity of the tunnels, and hear of the sacrifices they were willing to make to protect their country, you begin to get a sense of what a quagmire we were in and how it really was a hopeless cause for our side. I can’t begin to imagine the anger and bitterness our soldiers must have felt as they tried to take on an invisible army for a cause that’s still difficult to understand 40 years later. It’s no wonder they are still fighting that war in their heads.

The Chu Chi Tunnels made me very sad.