War Remnants Museum

War Remnants Museum in Saigon is an impressive and memorable museum dedicated to telling war stories that occured during the Vietnam War. On display outside of the museum's building are American military vehicles used during the Vietnam War. There was a UH-1"Huey" helicopter, an F-5A fighter, a BLU-82 "Daisy Cutter"bomb, M48 Patton tank, and an A-1 attack bomber. Many tourist like to take photos of these vehicles doing silly poses including me.

There is a section outside the museum's main building that was about the torture of prisoners during the war. Some of the items on display includes a guillotine used by the French and theSouth Vietnamese to execute prisoners and reproductions of the "tiger cages" and prison cells in which the South Vietnamese government housed political prisoners. Surrounding this area are very graphic images that show the effects of torture. Beware there are a lot of shocking images which are not for the faint hearted.

Inside the museum's building there are three levels showing films, pictures and other items on display that document atrocities committed by American, Chinese, and French soldiers in grim detail. The first floor is very interesting because it displays all the propaganda of the government and is very one sided. There's such great communist propaganda about how brothers and sisters beat back the imperial dogs of the French and the Americans! Loved it!

On the second floor there are numerous rooms containing different war artifacts (artillery, weapons, guns and gear are all on display). There is also photo galleries depicting what the war did to this nation and its people. Photos like the massacre at the village called My Lai was especially upsetting. Although the room was full of people, everyone was very quiet and somber. And you can see from everyone faces, it was a very moving experience.

The section on Agent Orange I thought was very disturbing and graphic. The United States military used chemical weapons  during the war to defoliate forests and bushes so the enemy could no longer remain in hiding. However, Agent Orange did a lot more than that. Children were being born with birth defects and many had deformed bodies, missing limbs or body parts, extra body parts as result of this.

In the top floor, there's an incredibly moving collection of photographs, 'Requiem', taken by 134 war reporters killed covering the war. Some of the shots were just unbelievable.

I thought the museum was both moving and thought provoking. It was perhaps the saddest experience of my trip but definitely worth visiting. Although it was a very one sided presentation, (there is nothing in the museum that depicts the North Vietnamese doing anything bad), we can't deny the suffering that the war brought upon the Vietnamese people. Just know you are not getting the whole story.