The Cu Chi Tunnels & the Vietnam War from a different perspective

This morning's optional tour was a trip to Cu Chi, 40 miles southwest of Ho Chi Minh city, and famous for its underground tunnel system - which is over 160 miles long. The tunnels were built by hand trowel & basket over a period of 25 years, beginning in the 1940s. The Cu Chi section was critical during the Vietnam War and enabled the Viet Cong to control large areas near Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City).
 
Due to the scorched earth policy employed by the Americans in an attempt to carpet bomb the Viet Cong, the residents of Cu Chi were forced into an intricate, multi-level series of tunnels that stretched as far as Cambodia and included a hospital, kitchens and meeting rooms. These tunnels provided an effective network for waging guerrilla warfare on nearby US troops. In fact some of these tunnels were right underneath several of the US installations in Vietnam.

The thinking behind the entire plan of the tunnels was incredible - almost every possibility of detection and protection seemed to be anticipated and dealt with in their construction. Because the Vietnamese are so much smaller than the Americans, the Americans could not enter the tunnels. So they would try to flood or smoke out the Vietnamese. But the multi levels assured that attempts to flood them would only result in the people evacuating to a different level. Entries to the tunnel were camouflaged to blend into the jungle floor, and man-made termite mounds were used to camouflage air vents. An escape & entry from the sea enabled the Vietnamese to come & go undetected by the Americans.

 

 Basket & hand trowel

used to dig the tunnels.

 

 

 Leaf-covered jungle floor

 concealed tunnel entry.

 

 

Vietnamese slid door to side,

 entered tunnel & slid cover

back into place.

 

 

Air vent at base of termite mound.

 

Reconstruction of hospital area

in tunnels.

 

 

One of the many reasons why I wanted to visit Vietnam was to get a better understanding of a war I will always remember as if it was yesterday. I did not support the war - I had an older brother who went to college to avoid the draft and narrowly escaped being drafted when a college deferment disappeared with the draft lottery being instituted. I remember my parents preparing to send my brother to Canada - if that's what it took.

 

I was embarrassed and ashamed to be an American in the Vietnam War Museum in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) - being sickened by the multitude of photographs documenting the atrocities of war on both sides. While standing in the Cu Chi Tunnel area I kept thinking about the Vietnamese people who had to live in the tunnels to escape annihilation at the hands of both the Viet Cong and the Americans.  I thought of the young American soldiers who were involved in unknown guerrilla warfare - not knowing whether the next step they took would be their last - would it end with a land mine? Would they step into a booby trap & be impaled by spikes?

 

Later in our trip, during the extension to Cambodia, we would learn from our tour guide, Thai, that as a young boy, he was sent into the Cambodian jungle to find the land mines. He admitted that he could remember peeing his pants 3 times because he was so scared of what he might find and of the bullets whizzing so close he could feel them disturb the air. I cannot begin to imagine the fear on either side, and I hope I never experience that fear. But I hope that some day we will finally learn from our past experiences and be able to live in peace.