Cu Chi Tunnels

Tyler, Tayler and I spent a day at the Cu Chi tunnels, which is the tunnel system that the Viet Cong used during the war. I had recently red Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” and was really excited to see the tunnels. If you haven’t read this book you should, it is a beautifully written book that takes place during the Vietnam War.

To get there we talked to a moto driver named Woang on the corner. He called his brother who had a car and drove us for a total of about 4 hours for 12 bucks each. Woang was from Cambodia, and had fled to Vietnam in the 70’s. He said that most of his friends had been killed in Cambodia. I wasn’t sure what he meant. I would find out a few days later in Cambodia what he was talking about, and this put another exclamation point on how ignorant I am.

The tunnels we visited were about an hour outside of Saigon. The entries to some of the tunnels are so small that none of us could fit our shoulders through them. They are so cramped, I can’t imagine living down there all the time. It must have been so scary for Americans to have to crawl in there when they discovered a new tunnel. Being in the jungle made me feel how scary it must have been to be in that war. We saw an American tank that had been destroyed by a mine in 1970.

This may seem inappropriate, but we had a chance to shoot some automatic weapons while we were in Cu Chi. We got to shoot an AK-47 and the M-16’s that Americans used in the war. I’ve never been a firearms enthusiast, I don’t like to kill animals, and guns scare the crap out of me, but I didn’t think I would ever get this kind of chance again. These guns are extremely loud! I can’t imagine being shot at with these things. It must be absolutely terrifying. In a firefight you wouldn’t even be able to here yourself think. Fighting in this war must have been unbelievably scary.

We also got to see examples of the booby traps that the Viet Cong used in the jungle. These were absolutely brutal. They made ditches with bamboo spears in the bottom, and would smear feces on the spears to promote infection. I can’t imagine how horrible this war must have been.