The American War Museum- Viet Nam

The American War Museum

July, 2005
Ho Chi Min City, Viet Nam

I am in Viet Nam, visiting the American War Museum. The country is celebrating 30 years since the end of this war.  I have always been drawn to this war.  Why were we ever there? What did we hope to accomplish? Would I ever fight in a war? What great atrocity would have to be committed to motivate me to take up arms against another human being?

The last soldiers sent over there would be my age now.  They would be men who have had their children and are now slipping into the role of grandparents.

I notice a photo of an American taken in 1970; he looks to be about 18 but must be my age now, maybe even older.  He is bare chested, smoking a cigarette and he is holding something with one hand. He is grinning, ear-to-ear.  I look closer and he is holding the head and upper torso of a Vietnamese man. The rest of this body been blown away. Our soldier holds this head like a trophy, like a hunter who has just snagged a buck.  Of all the destruction I see today, this photo haunts me the most and I wonder what this man would think of his photo now, 30 years later.

Montezuma

In the Halls of Montezuma
Our Home in Philadelphia, PA

Philadelphia, PA

1965

I decided to ask my siblings to write their stories of our childhood.  Our mother had just died.  Her parents were immigrants and we had very little information about their childhood.  My father’s family was dying off.  And so was all of our oral history.

“If we all write just 10 stories each, we could have 70 of them”, I tell them, hoping to ignite some excitement around my very clever idea.  They show absolutely no interest in my request.  They weren’t just indifferent to the project.  They thought it as stupid.

“You don’t even have to type the stories, I will do that for you and I’ll do all of the formatting. I will put a book together for all of us to have,” I pleaded with them.  They continue to be unmoved by my request.

“It must be nice to have no kids.  When you don’t have kids, you have time to waste on stuff like this, said one sister.

I never got any takers to write even one lousy story.  But occasionally, one of them would call me and say,  "hey are you still writing that stupid family book?  I have a story you could write, remember when…” and then the story would be retold to me no matter how much I pleaded with them to write it down.

They didn’t. Not one of them.  But consistently a few of them remembered one particular story.

It was 1965; our uncle, an officer in the Marine Corp, was serving a tour of duty in Viet Nam. We worried about him every day.  We prayed for him.  And every Friday, we added his name to the long list of servicemen who got letters from the students in our grade school.

At the same time, someone gave my father a cheap, play-by-numbers, electronic, squeaky keyboard.

We put it in the hallway and we all attempted to learn how to play it. I still remember Mary Had A Little Lamb: 321 2333 222 333 321 2333 322321. Sometimes I would get the threes and the twos mixed up.  That really messed up the flow of the song.

We learned Happy Birthday and Twinkle, Twinkle and Oh Susanna.  We all seemed to have a particular favorite.  However, we all felt a great need to learn the marine’s anthem, In The Halls of Montezuma.  We played that song too frequently and too poorly. It was dreadful but we played it with a thought that this act alone would bring our uncle home safely.

As my siblings reflected on this story, they all remembered how dreadful the others played. Individually, they all bragged they were the best.  But that is a ridiculous thought because, really, truly, I was the best.