Culture » July 28, 2008

War Crimes Hunter (cont’d)

Picking at emotional scabs

I have interviewed many Vietnamese people about their most traumatic, horrific experiences. Grandmothers have told me about the sex crimes they endured, parents have told me of murdered children and old women have spoken of perverse tortures they were subjected to. I’ve seen burn scars, empty eye sockets, mangled limbs and the grotesque injuries that result from high-velocity rifle rounds and fragmentation weapons designed to maim and kill.

I know the discomfort of reducing people to tears and picking at emotional scabs that took years to form. But I’ve rarely experienced anything like I did when interviewing Ho Thi A.

The irony is that, as far as massacre interviews go, I thought this one had been proceeding along fine. There weren’t even any tears – up to a point. Then the floodgates broke. This wasn’t tearing up. Or crying. Or even sobbing. She began inconsolably bawling.

At the five-minute mark, it was past uncomfortable.

At 10 minutes, I wondered if she would ever stop.

At 15 minutes, I was at a loss of what to do.

If you’ve never reduced a stranger to such a state, it’s hard to explain what it’s like to sit across from a woman you’ve only just met and have just plunged into an acute emotional crisis, while being incapable of speaking her language and – because of professional and cultural reasons – are unable to do so much as reach out and hold her hand.

Footnotes in Vietnam’s hidden history

I’ve spent years studying U.S. military conduct in Vietnam – reading formerly classified U.S. war crimes documents; interviewing retired Pentagon officials who tracked atrocities; speaking with veterans courageous enough to admit the crimes they saw or even committed; as well as scouring Vietnamese sources, U.S. histories and press reports.

I’ve worked to demonstrate that it’s simply incorrect to begin and end the discussion of U.S. atrocities with My Lai, as most U.S. histories of the war tend to do. I’ve tried to demonstrate how pervasive the civilian suffering was – but this trip again drove home to me that the scale of the carnage is still almost beyond my grasp.

No one will ever know how many U.S.-perpetrated massacres took place in Vietnam. Nor how many hamlets were decimated by bombings. Nor the number of villages laid to waste by artillery strikes. Nor will there ever be an accurate count of the people psychologically injured, maimed or killed. Le Bac is just one horrific footnote in a hidden history of the Vietnam War that few Americans can truly comprehend – if they even wish to do so.

What Americans can do is remember that somewhere, right now, in Vietnam – as in current war zones, like Iraq and Afghanistan – Ho Thi A and other survivors are living with trauma that doesn’t fade with the passage of decades. In Vietnam, the scars Sartre spoke of are still visible – if you’re willing to look closely enough.