What shocked me the most at Cu Chi Tunnels, Vietnam?
When visiting Ho Chi Minh City, one thing that almost every tourist opts for is the Cu Chi Tunnels tour. It’s a war memorial park that represents a system of tunnels, traps, and hiding spots used by Viet Cong soldiers during the Vietnam War in 1968.
Life was a challenge for people in those tunnels. They were stuck 3 to 12 meters beneath the earth with a lack of fresh air, food, or clean water. Ants, snakes, spiders, scorpions, and other rodents infested the tunnels, causing different sicknesses, especially malaria, which happened to be the second largest reason for death, right after death from battle wounds…
Can you imagine the horror people lived in? Usually, soldiers had to spend the whole day underground because of the constant air attacks, working or trying to rest. They could come out only at night to find supplies or fight with the enemy.
At times, when facing intense bombing, they would be forced to stay underground for many days in a row. According to a Viet Cong report obtained from captives, it was indicated that approximately half of the People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF) unit would be afflicted with malaria at any given time, with “one-hundred percent having significant intestinal parasites.”
The tunnels served various purposes for Viet Cong soldiers during combat, acting as hiding places, communication and supply routes, hospitals, storage for food and weapons, and living quarters for many North Vietnamese fighters. The tunnel systems held significant importance for the Viet Cong in their resistance against American forces, effectively countering the escalating American military presence.
Visiting the war memorial park and the biggest shock
The moment we arrived at the destination point, I felt excited, probably like every other foreigner in our group. I didn’t give a big thought to the significance and drama of this place, where dozens of thousands of people were bombed and killed.
To be honest, I didn’t have a feeling of deep sympathy for the victims of the war either; at that point, my main thought was, “SO cool, we are gonna go underground and see the tunnels.”
When we started the walk around the forest with our tour guide, the realization that this was actually a true war site struck me. They showed us the bomb craters, tanks, rockets, weapons, and booby traps made by the Viet Cong.
The tour guide moved his arm around, showing the forest, and said: “Today you can see a rich vegetation but during the war, this forest had just tree pillars as it was all burnt from shooting and attacks.”
Gradually, my excitement vanished, and I walked there feeling frustrated, looking at the tourists around laughing, making jokes, climbing the tank, and taking funny pictures together. Suddenly, it wasn’t a tourist attraction for me anymore; it was a real war site, with pain and death in the air, a war that I could relate to very much as a Ukrainian.
While we were walking, I heard a shooting in the distance.
My first thought was that they put it on speakers hidden around the park so people could immerse more into the atmosphere that used to be here over 50 years ago.
But as we moved on in a specific direction, the shooting became louder and more prominent until we reached a shooting range. And this was my shock: is it really appropriate to have a shooting range at the war memorial park??
The noise from the shots was incredibly loud. An incessant series of shots rang out in the air, one after another.
This sound triggered something inside me. So quickly that I didn’t even get to realize it, but tears flowed like a river from my eyes.
I burst into tears and couldn’t stop. These are the sounds that Ukrainian soldiers hear in the forests every day, the deadly sounds… These are the sounds that killed my colleague and two of her kids near Kyiv. These are the sounds that civil people hear from their homes on the frontline territory in Ukraine. These are the sounds that bring pain, suffering, and death.
While here, like in a parallel universe, enthusiastic Western men and women pay money, buy bullet sets, and happily head to take the gun and shoot. Here, it’s an attraction, a fun adventure.
One thought went on and on in my mind, “I moved from Ukraine to NOT hear these sounds, I didn’t come to Vietnam to listen to the shooting, cry loudly and shake from head to toe with every bang in the air”.
Lacking a better word, I simply say I hate it! If these people want to experience WAR, and shooting is fun for them, they are very welcome to come to Ukraine, to a real war, take the gun, and fight for democracy and freedom.
This attraction, a shooting range in the war memorial park, is like a joke to everyone who died in that forest. A laugh at moms who lost their sons, at sisters who lost their brothers, and at women who lost their husbands. It’s a laugh and total disrespect to all the challenges, illnesses, and losses that soldiers were forced to go through.
As a person whose home country and nation are in an ongoing war, I can’t understand the people’s ignorance and thoughtlessness. I can’t understand why people romanticize the war as if it’s a fun adventurous thing to do.
War is pain. War is grief, death, and tears, it’s despair, it’s unbearable pain that drives you mad. It’s lack of sleep, it’s mental illnesses, it’s NO future, no travels, and no joy.
Okay, you might say that I am just traumatized by the war in Ukraine, and my perception is distorted. But think about this: a shooting range at a war memorial park is like if at Auschwitz there was a shooting range or a gas chamber attraction. It’d be absolute disrespect and the most inappropriate thing one can imagine.
Maybe I am biased, or maybe the pain my nation is going through right now helps me see things more clearly, and understand the real price people pay at war a little bit better.
So, what’s the difference then? Why, when visiting a concentration camp in Poland, people remain silent? Why, when visiting a war memorial park in Cu Chi Tunnels, it is all about funny pictures, adventure, and the shooting range?
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