Strikemaster Jet
In the heart of District 1 lies this old museum, which houses the relics of American warfare such as F5 and Strikemaster jets, Huey helicopters as well as the AMX 13 tanks, It serves as a constant reminder that the Communist Vietnam was victorious only about 35 years (1975 ?) ago when the North Vietnam forces occupied South Vietnam and united the entire country. Many films depicting the desperate final months and days of the 20 year war such as 'Platoon', 'Apocolpse Now', 'Hamburger Hill' as well as the much decorated film 'The Deer Hunter' by Martin Scorsese starring the then young and handsome Robert de Nero have been made and played out to impressionable youths (like me) in the late 70s and early 80s. They shaped my impression of the war. Going to Ho Chih Minh changed my preception of that forever.
Whatever images that was painted in those films were mainly seen through American and foreign eyes. The crappy Rambo movies which sold millions of tickets depicted Viet Cong as evil despicable people intent on torturing our poor but well endowed John Rambo and screwed up his mind. What a load of Bulls***!!
Image of death staring out the window
During my first trip to Ho Chih Minh last year, I had a mindset change, in the form of realising that the reality was that while America were the losers of the protracted war (they pulled out), the saddest fact was that Hollywood cashed in on the world's ignorance and short terms memory by producing films of utter nonsense depicting fictitious heros like Rambo (1-IV),and lots of other forgettable films where the heroic Americans helped their comrades out from the dirty village prisons.
What Herosim ! Never mind that the Americans dropped thousands of bombs filled with Napalm (Agent Orange) and killed or worse still maimed many thousands of women, children,families and led them to a bleak future as a handicapped disabled person. How vile and despicable can this so-called superpower be ??
AMX 13 Tank
Bear in mind, the Vietnamese were fighting for their independence, and right to govern, and Ho Chih Minh was the catalyst and lightning rod to galvanise the country, though how many Vietnamese were true Communist was a debatable question. Americans on the other hand, were fighting for 'llberty,freedom and he American way'. Again, another piece of Bulls*** foreign policy of American attempted dominance after French colonialists were booted out in the late 50s. Its so true that American interests in the form of businesses in Da Nang (a seaport) plus all the American companies in the S.E. Asian peninsula would be threatened with the spectre of Communism.
Looking at the world order today, and see that China (Communist) is now aiming to lead the world in economic progress. So is the democratic way of Governance the ideal way forward ?
F5 Jet
The biggest irony about this museum is where in the world would you find a country which has been victorious in defeating a huge and vicious enemy which had inflicted bilions of dollars of damage and millions of lives lost, dedicate a musuem to the weapons of mass destruction (at that time) ? It doesn't show anything about the horrors of war, the people who suffered tremendously, and the countless of lives and families torn apart by these weapons of destruction.
This is again, another petty attempt at earning some tourist money, but if I were a Vietnamese, I would be shocked to go and visit a musuem in Ho Chih Minh which showed me what killed my family and friends 30 odd years ago.
Its a cuel joke.
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