DMZ

DMZ

First off, I should say that other than Tan, the boys don’t speak much English - so the majority of the discussion is in Vietnamese. Sometimes I know why I’m getting out of the van, and sometimes I don’t. It’s kind of good humor. Anyway, one day on our way down the coast, there was much talking and then we quickly pulled over, Nghia jumped out and bought a bottle of booze and a extra large pack of incense and jumped back in the car. Humm, I thought, I wonder what that’s all about? Is Nghia a meditation booze-hound? We carried on.

In a bit we came to the 17th parallel - aka the DMZ or former dividing line between North and South Korea. We stopped at the bridge - it had arches on both ends . As soon as we got out, a very stern voice came out of these massive bullhorns attached to a government looking building. Basically they were saying “Send us your leader and state your business”. We promptly dispatched Nghia and continued on with our picture taking.

Back in the van and further down the road, again, much conversation and a quick pull over next to some village ladies. This time Chao jumps out of the van, talks, gestures, jumps back in and proceeds to tell Hiep to get on down the road, so we do.

A short time and many conversations and gestures later, we pull over to a cemetery. Now, we had passed many along the way, so I wasn’t really sure what was going on, and when we got out of the van, along with the booze and incense, the mystery became too much and I asked Tan about it.

One of Chao’s relatives died in the war and his remains were recently identified. He is buried in this cemetery so we were stopping to pay homage.

We went to the main part of the cemetery and lit the whole pack of incense, said some prayers and then split up the incense. Chao and Nghia went off to find the grave, Tan started putting a stick of incense on each tombstone.

Giving them some privacy, I wandered around the cemetery and thought it was curious that all of the tombstones were exactly the same. Other cemeteries we had passed looked much like ours. Different shaped headstones, some mausoleums, etc. Hummm. Walking around, I quickly realized… 1972...1972...1972...1972...1972...1972...1972...1972...1972...1972...1972...1972...1972...1972.…every…single…one. As tears were streaming down my eyes Tan came up and was telling me that this area was the site of some of the worst fighting in the war, with rivers turned red with blood and farmers still unearthing remains to this day. It is customary to light an incense stick on the grave and pour some liquor symbolizing that we are buying the young men a drink.

It immediately brought back the feelings I had as I’ve paid homage to other places of great tragedy and loss of life in this world like the beaches of Normandy and Auschwitz. This place wasn’t majestic - these cemeteries aren’t national monuments, they are so much more humble in what they speak. These are simple, community cemeteries that are found along side the roads and outside of villages, the same places our cemeteries are found, marking the loss of family and friends. In some ways I’m so glad we stopped, in others I hate that there are these places on the planet. All political viewpoints aside, this must have been a heart wrenchingly horrible place to be in 1972.