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Hansen Smith Travels

9 min readJan 19, 2018

Chúng ta đừng quên 🌺 (Lest we forget) 🇻🇳

Just a quick content warning here. Some of my personal opinions and the images you will see in this article deal with war atrocities, my own personal opinion and convictions and my somewhat ignorant knowledge of the Vietnam / American war. Some of it may seem somewhat hypocritical given that I am an ex serving member of the New Zealand defence force - not from this conflict. But from the embargoes in the Arabian gulf against Iraq. I want to be really clear that I am not denigrating the courageous service that my colleagues, brothers and sisters in the NZDF did in any service. I love ❤️ my country and I deeply cherish the brotherhood, lifelong friendships and adventures I had whilst serving in The RNZN.

Disclaimer done ✅. 😙

War remnants museum

We spent our last day in Ho Chi Minh City yesterday and there was something that I wanted to do (but didn’t want to as well) which was to visit the War remnants museum. My wife Jac didn’t want to deal with the harrowing content we knew it contained, fair enough too, she has had more than her share of horrors to deal with. I just about bursted with pride when my 14 year old son piped up at breakfast and said “I’ll be there for you Dad, I know you are probably gong to find it hard eh?” I said, “You realise this isn’t like Call of duty right? This is some real heavy shit”, “Yep, I guess I should learn about it too” he said.

Outside there were American tanks, patrol boats and jets. I was surprised at how small the A37 Dragonfly bomber was, you could fit this thing in a double garage.

The building has 3 levels. Level one has a standard gift store and general information about the political situation leading to the war with the overthrow of the French colonial regime. There were examples of the beautiful propaganda posters produced from the time.

Interestingly there were also a lot of displays that were commending the American founding principles of freedom liberty and justice. I saw this as a softening up for the irony that you were about to be shown.

I am reading a biography on Ho Chi Minh at the moment. The material is sourced from writers and journalists all over the globe so it’s not the censored party version. There is an anecdote that when he went to New York and saw the gift of the Statue of Liberty that France had given them to commemorate their emancipation from English colonialism, the contradiction brought him to tears and really resolved his convictions on having Vietnam for Vietnamese. To get the French government, any foreign governments out of Indochina.

Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Prime Minister of India and a central figure in Indian politics before and after independence. Ho Chi Minh had collegial relationships with many foreign leaders, particularly the ones trying to shake off the shackles of colonialism. This included the obvious communist ones such as Castro and Che Guevara, but also strong ties with Russia and Mao Tse Tung.

Some readers may be thinking WTF Damen has turned in to a filthy commie!!! Don’t worry folks I’m in some great company. 😜

Fear

We moved up to level two. Here the general feeling was fear and sorrow. I was in tears within minutes. There were photos that I just would not republish. Piles of bodies of children, people dismembered. Soldiers holding up body parts and laughing. What follows is a really censored taste.

There was a photo above this text of terrified women and small children. I didn’t want to show them in this post out of respect. Yes another wad of tissues was required here. One realisation I did have here though is the bravery, resolve and conviction that so many photographers and journalists had during this war. We owe a massive debt of gratitude to them, that they brought to light some of the atrocities to the American public which really helped to turn public sentiment.

One such photographer was Larry Burrows (born Henry Frank Leslie Burrows 29 May 1926 in London, died 10 February 1971 in Laos) he was an English photojournalist and is best known for his pictures of the American involvement in the Vietnam War.

I think this guy was a real hero and I really admire his work. He had a real skill for making horrifying images seem unbiased.

Larry Burrows in Lao just before his death.

Some of his work was on display, some examples follow.

Sometimes the best weapon to take into the battlefield is a camera.

This camera was hanging right over the photographer’s heart. This is what an AK47 round does to your nice Leica.

The girl in the photo

Probably the most iconic photo to start the anti war sentiment in the states. Phan Thị Kim Phúc OOnt, referenced informally as the Napalm girl, is a Vietnamese-Canadian best known as the nine-year-old child depicted in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph taken at Trảng Bàng during the Vietnam War on June 8, 1972.

War crimes

We then went in to a huge hall called “War crimes” this documented in detail the torture and use of chemical weapons By the American forces and the wholesale slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians. War is absolute shit and I accepted that this is Vietnam’s version of events but the evidence was pretty damning.

The bombings were unprecedented in history. Particularly in Hanoi. By the end of the war, 7 million tons of bombs had been dropped on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia – more than twice the amount of bombs dropped on Europe and Asia in World War II. When we were there they pulled a 40lb unexploded bomb out of the river just a few kms from our apartment.

What I found hardest to deal with was the chemical warfare. I hate Monsanto. For what they have done to the planet, but some of this stuff is the worst.

The USA undertook a military campaign that was called Operation Ranch Hand, but it originally went by a more appropriately hellish appellation: Operation Hades. As part of this Vietnam War effort, from 1961 to 1971, the United States sprayed over 73 million liters of chemical agents on the country to strip away the vegetation that provided cover for Vietcong troops in “enemy territory.”

Dioxin

What is it? – Dioxins are a group of chemically-related compounds that some see as amongst the most toxic chemicals known to science. Monsanto found themselves involved in 1945 when they began promoting the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture.

Why is it bad? – Dioxins are most notably dangerous for their ability to accumulate in the food chain, and an EPA report once confirmed dioxins as a cancer hazard to humans.

Where is it being used? – Rather than used, dioxins are primarily being found in meat and dairy products due to how integrated they have become within the food chain.

Agent Orange

What is it? – A herbicide/defoliant primarily used as a form of chemical warfare during the Vietnam War. Monsanto conveniently happened to be one of the two major manufacturers of the lethal weapon.

Why is it bad? – Agent Orange is said to be responsible for over 400,000 deaths and 500,000 birth defects, with over a million suffering from health problems of some kind. Agent Orange’s issue lay in its dioxin contamination – something that Monsanto apparently knew about when it sold it to the U.S. government for use in war.

Where is it being used? – The implications of Agent Orange in Vietnam are still being felt, with a formal clean-up effort not beginning until 2012. A shocking side note is that some chemicals found in Agent Orange can still be found in certain herbicides being used today.

Victims

In every corner of Vietnam that we visited we came across victims of birth defects from agent orange. Particularly people my age who were born at the time of the worst contamination. I was moved to tears on a number of occasions. One incident that will remain with me forever was talking to the mother of a child whose head, without a lie was the size of a huge beach ball, the type you kick about in summer. I didn’t take a single photo of these people out of respect for their dignity. I did have some conversations and bought their wares when I could. What follows are examples from the museum where the victims have given their permission for the pictures to be shown.