War Remnants Museum

Many of the atrocities documented here were well publicized but Westerners rarely have the opportunity to hear the victims of US military action tell their own stories.  While the displays are one sided and could be considered a bit propagandist, it was worth seeing the most disturbing photographs that illustrate US atrocities and are from US sources.

US armored vehicles, artillery pieces, bombs, and infantry weapons are on display outside.  One corner of the grounds is devoted to the notorious French and South Vietnamese prisons on Phu Quoc and Con Son Islands.  Artifacts include the guillotine, and tiger cages used to house VC prisoners.

The ground floor consists of a collection of posters and photographs showing support for the antiwar movement throughout the world.  Upstairs, showed us the horrors of war, using photographs of severely deformed and handicapped people, resulting from the use of agent orange, who were born after the war.  One type of weapon, the flechette, was an artillery shell filled with thousands of tiny darts, which was a military secret, and used as an experimental weapon.  The stories of many war correspondents were depicted through their photographs, many of which were killed or never found.  Many aerial pictures showed the pummeled, cratered ground of US bombing, and the extreme defoliation of the chemicals used on the land and people of Vietnam.

Many of the pictures in the museum were so horrifying that it was impossible for me to take photos.  Your imagination will have to take its place!!

The museum drove home the point that war is horribly brutal and that many of its victims are civilians.