Here it is called The American War, not the Vietnam War.

The first thing to say is there is not much to see - it is certainly not glorified. Whilst we see it as a proxy war between the West and Communism, it was mainly a Civil War, so this is not surprising. There are statues of Ho Chi Minh around the place and in Ho Chi Minh City / Saigon there are two relevant museums - Independence Palace and The War Remnants Museum.

It is hard to get a clear view on how many people died in The American War. Low end of the range (US view) is 1.5m whilst the high end is 3.8m (separate British Medical Journal and Vietnamese estimates). I’m in Vietnam so lets go with their side of the story:

Civilians 2.0m
North Vietnamese soldiers 1.1m
South Vietnamese soldiers 0.3m
Western soldiers (not in Vietnamese numbers) 0.3m
- (includes Australians - 523 dead, 2400 wounded out of 60,000 who served)
And lets not forget Cambodian / Laos civilians 0.4m
Or 4m people exposed to Agent Orange (20m litres of Agent Orange and other herbicides were sprayed, covering 20% of Vietnam’s forests and 5% of its agricultural land)

Any way you look at it the numbers are terrible.

The War Remnants museum obviously tells the story from their perspective and presents it as war crimes by the US and they are right. It tells of appalling cruelty and behaviour carried out by both the US soldiers and the Southern Vietnamese Army. As a Westerner, I can easily point out that it does not address the appalling war crimes by the Vietcong, but lets be honest if I go to any museum in the West that tells the story of the Vietnam War, it will be from our perspective and will downplay or ignore our war crimes.

History is written by the victors!

**Independence Palace (former Presidents Palace)**

Independence Palace was the home and offices of the president of the Republic of (South) Vietnam. It was the site of the Fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975 that ended the Vietnam War, when a North Vietnamese Army tank crashed through its gates. It is a very interesting building, with huge galleries and meeting rooms - its fair to say the Vietnamese President did not spare any expense in building his home.

Let’s not forget the French were here first. They colonised Indochina (including Vietnam) from the mid 1800s through until 1954. They left a few lovely torture tools that the Southern Vietnamese took up with gusto.

The guillotine was retired in 1960, but the barbed wire tiny cells which were deliberately left out in the sun (this one could hold 4 people who could only lie side by side) were used as punishment throughout the war.