War Remnants Museum, Saigon Vietnam

   Sometimes...I have this biased opinion when it comes to historical landmarks or museums because I often leave feeling as if these places not having any increased amount of emotion that I didn't already have previously (when I learned about it in a textbook). These museums/sites always reflect a critical time period or event, but I have encountered too many that lack the artistic flare that should leave a visitor captivated upon leaving it.

   But then there are museums like the War Remnants Museum in Saigon, Vietnam that really put its exhibits and historical past on a whole new level of an emotional reaction. Truly a gut-wrenching level. Never before has a museum expose the United States to the imperialistic, unlawful, embarrassing past (if studied correctly) our country has proven itself to be countless times in history. This museum obviously only focuses on one of these corrupt times, the Vietnam War intervention.

   Upon entering the museum, you are exposed to the tanks, planes and weaponry of the American military that was used through out the Vietnam War. Truthfully, I was not particularly interested in this aspect...it sort of reflects upon a type of trophy-ism that America really has no right to display in correlation to this war. Inside, a display of the land mines used through out the war used explicitly to wound humans (and animals) outside the trenches or shelters.The museum actually portrays a quote stating that the weaponry used and the war itself was the "American Science of Destruction." Its honestly sickening. We also visited the tunnels at Co Chi used by the guerrilla fighters and just the traps, landmines that were initially used for the purpose of animals were then "advancing" to entail human casualties. I don't know if it is the boulder-flower child pacifist attitude in me, but I will argue to my core that advancing warfare (except possibly intellectual warfare) is really just a naive, mindless, backlash to animalistic/barbaric roots.

    The museum displayed multiple photo exhibitions that drew an emotional appeal with every floor, focusing on the war crimes America savagely partook in overseas in an unnecessary act of war. The floor that particular captivated the experience was set up by Tim Page and Horst Faas called "Requiem," that featured not ordinary photos, but Pulitzer-Prize winning photos from photojournalists that were lead to their death by the end of the Vietnam War. They bravely went into the war zone that much of the nation naively turned their back on.  Faas and Page commemorated all these journalists who died in the war, neglecting any bias to their nationality or political views. I was personally excited to see the capturing of the LIFE Magazine collection done by Larry Burrows. I have always thought his photographs speak so loudly in his record of the distant war.