“Seek peace and pursue it.” Psalm 34:14b
I don’t want to write this blog. I’ve been fighting it for a few days. There are so many excuses in my head. I don’t want to depress people. I see things in too intensely. I would rather check out and watch Gilmore Girls, then process all the feelings that Vietnam brought up for me.
From the moment I decided to go to Vietnam my Dad and I talked a lot about it. He was in the Navy and was stationed off the coast of Vietnam during the war. Suddenly I wanted to hear as many of my Dad’s stories as possible. I had always liked when he told war stories, but in the past I didn’t listen for the history or the details, just the punch lines.
I admire my Dad, and I am so proud that he had the ambition to get him self through college on a Navy ROTC scholarship, then fight for his country. Many of the life lessons that he has passed on to me have come from his time in the Navy: difficulty in life only makes you stronger, you can persevere through anything, and putting a cockroach under your ranking officer’s coffee cup makes for an interesting dinner.
(My Dad and me before the Race)
The day I arrived in Sigon, my teammates and I went to the Vietnam War Memorial Museum. The photographs and stories ripped my heart out, especially the pictures of Agent Orange victims. One of our tour guides, a Vietnamese man who fought with the Americans in the war, said it best, “There was no right in the Vietnam War, everyone was wrong, and in the end everyone was hurt.” It really is all wrong, to fight for noble ideals, using atrocious methods or to follow a genocidal leader. In war no one wins. After the museum I spent a long time sitting on my bed thinking and writing, completly exhausted.
(Pictures of the War Memorial Museum)
At times this year I’ve really struggled with my living conditions, living in a tent, eating ants as a seasoning with many meals, having no where to go for private time and space. (See One Strong Cup of Coffee with Flavored Creamer). But none of that compares to what solders, today or in the past, have to deal with.
In Peru the area where we lived was a giant sand box with nothing green in sight. It was tough to be there for a month, depression threatened, even though I had Starbucks and the beach for occasional escapes. While there I realized that my friends in Iraq don’t have the choice of Starbucks, they don’t get to move on after only a month. My Dad had to spend the first year of his marriage to my Mom on a ship in the middle of the ocean, thousands of miles from home, leaving was not an option.
Our team went to tour the tunnels used by the Vietcong solders. One part of the video showed how traps were used to kill the American and Vietnamese enemies. I hate that word, enemy. It allows for dehumanization. It struck me because it was used towards Americans, but how often and how easily do we as Americans use it towards others?
(Emilie and me in the Vietcong tunnles, I might look happy, but I was freaked out of my mind. Word to the wise, it’s a horrible idea for severe claustrophobics, to crawl through 140 meters of tunnel some parts so narrow that you have to army crawl.)
I’m proud of my Dad and I’m so thankful that I can understand a little more about his life and the sacrifices he made for the United States. After a lot of thinking about war, I’m confident in one thought. God asks all believers, no matter what they think about past or present wars, to pray for peace (Ps 122:6).
