What I got from Trip to Hanoi

From this writing, I was able to see a whole nother side of the Vietnam War. With my little knowledge about what relations were actually like between the North Vietnamese and the United States, this was very eye opening. All my knowledge comes from biased opinions and views taught to me by American people such as authors, teachers, family members, and ex-war veterans. Although this wasn't a North Vietnamese author, she was able to present me with ideas from a whole nother side of the spectrum having actually had the chance to spend time over in North Vietnam while the war was going on. This meaning, her ideas and conclusions have more knowledge and basis behind them than do most other people's teachings.

The author of "Trip to Hanoi", to me, seems to have a perception of the North Vietnamese people being just as human as we Americans are with hearts, feelings, and emotions. This may seem like common sense to most people, (which it should be, they are just human beings with different ideas and culture), but mostly only hearing racial slurs and negative thoughts directed at these people in topic of conversations can lead a person into having a bad image of who these people actually are and what they are like. My grandpa being a ex-war veteran, might be a source of these thoughts, but who am I to blame or judge him for his naive beliefs when he has seen, heard, felt, and tasted the horrors of what it is like to be in battle. Between hearing negative thoughts about these people and the fact that they were considered to be the "enemy" to the country I live and breathe in, I must admit I don't think to highly of these people. By definition, a enemy is described as one that is antagonistic to another, seeking to injure, overthrow, or confound an opponent. Knowing this, who am I to be blamed for thinking negatively of these people when they indiectly threatened my state of well-being. I guess that statement can be argued being that their is still debate going on in the world today of rather we were justified to go over there and fight or not, but that is not the point of this discussion. My point is that my thoughts before reading this article were strictly negative of the North Vietnamese people, but after being enlightened with a different point of view of the war, I am now vulnerable to change in my views. "We know the American people are our friends. Only the present American government is our enemy." Does the North Vietnamese being an enemy to our government mean they are enemies to our people as well? Debatable.

In the movie "Platoon", we saw scenes of violence done by the American people that went beyond what was ordered including unnecessary murders and rapes. These acts severely punishable by law and completely moraly wrong, but because it was done to people percieved as being heartless, ruthless animals, it was deemed as acceptable by portions of the U.S. forces. The perception of the people being this way can be aruged to be because of the way they were trained to fight in battle. The commanding officers didn't train their troops to kill sweet, innocent, loving people, they trained their troops to kill heartless monsters out for their blood. This mindset is key for survival when going into battle. The question I bring up from this, is would these soliders have done what they did to these innocent people of villages and other areas had they of had the chance to actually spend time and get to know some of the North Vietnamese people? According to the author of this writing, probably not. This assuming that the people over in North Vietnam really were the way the author described them, but of course she could have just been around the right people at the right time. Put her in a different city or town in a different situation, her perception on the people of North Vietnam might have been completely different. All this aside, should the fact that their is North Vietnamese people with good intentions and good hearts stray the soliders away from the killing and rapeing of innocent people and children? What if those innocent people that were killed for no mandated reason were one of the good ones? Just questions to think of, but once again, as with everything else in life, the answer is debateable.