The descriptions of the Vietnam War from a homeless man sitting on a park bench will give you nightmares, yet what he described is what he saw in the thick of it at age 21.
“I had to kill women and children because the North Vietnamese women were armed fighters and their babies were strapped to their front…” As he talked you could see that pictures as vivid as yesterday were running through his mind.
“They skinned men alive if they caught em’ – can you imagine what that would feel like,” he asked while talking about the pain that was endured by U.S. Troops. As he continued I could imagine the torture and how so many lost their lives while in Vietnam. He went on to describe more of what he saw, “Sometimes, they’d nail em’ to an upside down cross in the woods for other troops to find, alive.”
No one encouraged him to speak of the horrific things he saw or to stir those memories, he wanted to get it out of his mouth and probably his head. Sometimes, it is important to allow those with tragedy in their past to let it out. Sometimes, it is important to remain silent and to remember your words may mean little if anything.
In Vietnam:
Communist Hồ Chí Minh was once quoted as saying, “You will kill ten of us, we will kill one of you, but in the end, you will tire of it first.”
Hồ Chí Minh was not always his name. He was born as Nguyễn Sinh Cung, but later decided to go with a name that had meaning, Hồ Chí Minh, which means "He Who has been enlightened," became his title in 1941.
He was a Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader and later the President (1945–69) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He also helped to form the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.
One execution for every one hundred and sixty residents was the way Hồ Chí Minh moved to reform North Vietnam in the 1950’s. He called it land reform and rent reduction. However, it was the simple slaughter of innocent people. This… this is who U.S. Troops were up against in the Vietnam War.