Why North Vietnam won the war - Cu Chi Tunnels
Trip Start
Jul 25, 2006
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154
165
Trip End
Ongoing
Cu Chi,
Vietnam
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Cu Chi Tunnels
. This was largely unsuccessful. Occasionally American forces would send in smaller GIs into the tunnels armed only with hand guns in the claustrophobic tunnels. Accounts of tunnel firefights in the dark under the ground are some of the most harrowing stories of combat told. Unsurprisingly, the general much smaller Vietcong had the advantage of size and knowledge of the tunnels and the attrition rates of such missions were horrifying.Today, like most war related sites of this country, it is a tourist attraction.
A small section of the tunnels have been preserved in the Chu Chi district and turned into an educational and fun filled outing for the whole family. After paying our entrance fee, our guide took us to an underground classroom where a young Vietnamese soldier pushed play on the dvd player at the front. We watched a short film that looked as though it was shot during the wartime period, yet had production values of a more recent variety. I could never get an answer as to whether it was documentary footage or reproduced or both. The upshot of it was that the ingenious response to the barbaric and unjust war brought on by the foreign invaders had allowed the North Vietnam forces to showcase their superiority and resolve in their glorious struggle. Young female soldiers fed young male soldiers in one scene, and fired AK-47's in the next
Cu Chi Tunnels
. (Sometimes it is nice to be Canadian, and even nicer to be traveling with an American who I can always throw to the wolves should the situation ever arise.)After the movie, we started a tour of the surrounding grounds. We walked into a small clearing where a young Vietnamese solider stood waiting. The guide told us how the tunnels had many secret entrances that were made small so only the Vietnamese could fit into them and they would remain secret. The soldier then reached down to what had been just another piece of unremarkable ground and pulled up a small square lid covered in soil and leaves. With a quick hop, he was standing waist deep in the hole, and then squatted quickly bringing the cover to fit over the entrance. As he clambered up out of the hole, our guide asked if any of us would like to try it.
As mentioned before on this blog, I no longer possess the svelte build of my youth (and those of you who knew me in my last two years of undergrad, just be quiet - allow me my delusions). I prefer to think of myself as well fleshed, in a good way; however I have noticed a distressing pattern in the last few years of going from "abs" to "ab". The Vietcong were, as my mother so charmingly puts it in her comments below "Sure were..." But always up for new experiences, I lowered myself down into the hole. Standing in the hole, my stomach and backside firmly and fully filled the space available. Small laughs and verbal utterances of doubt at my ability to go any further wafted from the waiting crowd. Sucking in my gut, I grabbed the cover, sank down, and closed off the sunshine. Thirty seconds later with a grime smeared shirt and scrapes on the front and back of my person, I rejoined the group and the tour continued
Cu Chi Tunnels
.Scattered throughout the forested grounds were charming mannequin displays of Vietcong soldiers cooking dinner, relaxing around fires, cleaning weapons, and creating some of the most vicious, horrifying booby traps imaginable. Hidden bundles of sharpened spikes placed in small holes in the ground waited for unsuspecting American GI feet. Horribly ingenious spiked boards were set to slam down when doors were opened by searching enemy soldiers, piercing not the face or chest, but into the groin area for maximum pain and incapacitation. While shuddering at the barbaric nature of the traps, one can't help but admire the ingenuity behind the designs.
Finally we came to where about 100 metres of the tunnels had been preserved so vistors could duck walk through a section to get a feel of what it was like to live and travel under ground. This section of the tunnels had been enlarged almost twice their normal size to allow over sized Westerners to fit into the dark underground space. Remember that - these tunnels are almost TWICE the size what the Vietnamese who inhabited them lived and travelled in. Given the chance to trying walking through them, Danayi and I had to try. Our guide told us the section was about 100 metres long, but that exits existed from side tunnels about every 20 metres if claustrophobia and the dark got to be too much for us. Sucking in my stomach and clutching my daypack in front of me, I lowered myself into a crouch and began to shuffle ahead.
It's like this - if hundreds, possibly thousands of Vietnamese were willing to live and work in these hot, dark, indescribably cramped spaces underground and fight a successful guerrilla war against an enemy, they deserved to win
Cu Chi Tunnels
. They simply wanted it more. I mean no disrespect to the casualties of both sides of this conflict but when the Americans realized that the Vietcong were willing to live and go through these kind of conditions, they should have realized they would never win against these people, saved themselves the further troubles and gone home.Even with the enlargement of the tunnels I could barely fit into the space. I crouched down, knees throbbing (the injury I did to them in Africa have never healed), ducking my head and shuffling forward one baby step at a time. Sweat immediately began to run down my face, neck, and chest like water from a showerhead. After about 30 metres, there was another hole in the floor that lead to the continuation of the tunnel even further below ground. For one incredibly unpleasant moment, I could not bend my knees enough and get low enough to enter the other tunnel and was stuck unable to move back into the upper tunnel or down into the lower one. With a heave and sucking in of breath, I managed to squeeze myself into the lower tunnel and proceed onwards. About 30 metres from the final exit, Danayi and I both had enough and took a side tunnel that lead to an opening with stairs to the outside. Stepping into the tropical heat felt like stepping into air conditioning compared to the tunnels.
For an example of how much I was not enjoying my tunnel experience, check the photos here. See my face in the cropped close up? That is not the face of a man who is enjoying himself.
Afterwards we walked down the firing range, where for a dollar a bullet, you could fire off an AK 47
Cu Chi Tunnels
. Despite my thoughts on war and violence, my education, my Canadian puzzlement as to why the constitution of the United States protects the rights of private citizens to have laser sighted, grenade launching, fully automatic assault rifles, I couldn't resist. Ten dollars were slapped down, and I was led to my AK 47. As a veteran of dozens of war movies, and many video games, I assumed I would be a pro with a rifle. Squeeze the trigger, don't pull it. Brace it against your shoulder to cushion the kickback. Adjust for the wind and aim higher when over distance to take into the slight arching path of the bullet. And miss the huge metal barrels with every single shot. Not even close. However, I did show the dirt embankment in the back who was boss. So there.It's an odd thing to visit a place as a tourist that was the site of war, suffering and destruction. It's one thing to visit famous battlefields of the American Civil War, Napoleon's armies, even the trenches of World War One in Belgium. Enough time has passed that we have the pillow of history to remove ourselves from the reality of the historic events. As events get closer to your own timeline, conflict and misery tourism take on a vaguely uncomfortable feeling. You look at the people around and wonder "where they here?", "what did they do?" Our guide had told us on the bus he used to work with the American Army as a liaison and had been around Chichi in combat time
Cu Chi Tunnels
. That means the young soldiers he interacted with at the tunnel complex represented the enemy he had fought against. It is possible the older officers around the compound and our guide had even fought each other in the conflict. In Cambodia, each time we took a tuk tuk with a fifty year old driver or walked past the late middle aged woman who ran our hotel, I thought "What was your story from the Khmer Rouge times? How did you survive?" In Rwanda, walking through the streets of Kigali where some much blood had been shed just over a decade before, I looked into faces and thought "Did you turn in a Tutsi neighbour? Did you see your family slaughtered? What is your story?" So often it seems we like our history thrillingly bloody but ultimately meaningless to us personally. Old conflicts are the best - easily romanticized, history written by victors, and far removed from our present day realities. One of my students' favourite European History sections is the handout I give on medieval torture techniques. Mine too, for that matter. But history isn't just a thousand years ago, or a hundred, or even fifty. Yesterday is part of history, last week, last month. The history of our generation is being made now. It's the economic crisis of 2009. It's the election of the first Black President of the United States. It's Darfur in Sudan. It's the continuing destabilization of the Middle East. It's the exhausting of fossil fuel supplies and human created climate change. It's the blind eyes Western democracies give to emerging powers like China whose power and economic growth is matched only by their questionable human rights records. It's the Western democracies who wax poetically on their own human rights records and social safety nets while thousands of their citizens live out of cheap hotels, or sit on welfare due to cutbacks and redundancies. It's the exciting advancements being made in science and health care to fight new diseases, even while old ones like tuberculosis and yellow fever make comebacks.I wonder if there will be a day when I'm old and grey and puttering around my neighbourhood and people like me now, 40 years younger, will look at me and think "What is your story? What did you do in the obvious face of these things?" I hope I will have a few answers for them when those questions come.
Comments
wow sure are little people compared to North Ameri
Those holes are way too small for you son.
I amamzed with every photo and say wow is awesome wow too
laugh often live good and have fun
love Mom