Erica J Myers

ENG 379 — Travel Writing: Writing Prompt 5

Memories From Vietnam

“You would have died, if curiosity truly killed the cat,” said Lam, calmly with a slight smile. I looked up from what looked like the largest termite mound I had seen. I scrunched my eyebrows together, taking a second look at the edifice in front of me.  My eyes shifted from side to side, trying to locate the placard.  There was not one for this particular mound. I turned around to face Lam. “It is an airway for the tunnels beneath.”

“But it looks like just a regular termite mound,” I casually responded. I was pretty sure that Uncle James was looking down in disappointment. His favorite niece, the one he said would never go without because she had a hustle for everything, would have been killed in action had she been in the Vietnam War, all because of a mound of dirt.

Per the History Channel, Communist forces began digging a network of tunnels under the jungle terrain of South Vietnam in the late 1940s, during their war of independence from French colonial authority. At its peak during the Vietnam War, the network of tunnels in the Cu Chi district linked VC support bases over a distance of some 250 kilometers, from the outskirts of Saigon all the way to the Cambodian border. (History.com Editors. Cu Chi Tunnels. https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/cu-chi-tunnels. Original Published Date August 2, 2011.) Lam confirmed this, saying that some tunnels went all the way to the Saigon River so that those underneath would have access to water. She continued about the ventilation not being that good in some tunnels. Also, she continued to speak about the insides of the tunnel and the many perils facing those living in the tunnels, not just from American soldiers.

I looked at the mound again. I had a friendship with Death that only I could understand. I did not fear it. I respected it.  Death had a job to do. It was one of those things filed away in my mind, under “O” for Out of My Hands. This meant it was out of my control and I learned not to sweat anything that I could not control. Besides, I believed in reincarnation. Curiosity, something else I had no control over, came prancing into the scene again, as I said, “How many died underneath?”

Her eyes seemed to darken as she started up, “From what death? The river would sometimes crest in the monsoon and caught between the river and a wall of water coming down the vent pipes, some would drown.  The water tunnels would sometimes have crocodiles and other creatures.  If a fire started, the smoke could take out most of those in the tunnels. Combined with bombings, we do not know how many perished in the networks.”

“Are people still buried,” I asked. The journalist in me was taking over. My inner-journalist was not afraid of the truth. Death was just something that happened.

Lam’s shoulders went up in a shrug, “We tend to let those who are there, stay there.  You will not find them on the opened sections of tunnels.”

I poked my finger to the mound.  Lam gasped and quickly squirted hand sanitizer onto her hands, which she then placed over my hands to spread it around. My body wobbled, almost losing balance from being jerked sideways for sanitation.  She resembled a helicopter mom, keeping her baby safe from the germs. “No touching your face until we have washed your hands properly,” she scolded. I opened my mouth to ask why, but she told me before I had the chance. “We do not know how long chemicals last on our soil. There could still be traces of Agent Orange. Many birth defects.”

Standing up now, Brian opened his bottle of water and begin a steady stream which I ran my hands under.  Lam applied another coat of sanitizer on me.  I pulled out my camera. The shutter echoed like a machine gun, rapidly taking bursts of shots of the mound. I inspected the last 5 pictures. We wandered on.

I had not come to Vietnam because of my uncle serving in the war, nor for this grim tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels. I imagined myself lounging at the private pool of my own villa, watching the boats chug down the Saigon River from the comfort of the patio, and visiting art museums. Brian, my husband, was the one who liked the historical and tactical stuff on trips. On tours or museums like this, I was usually just there, in body, as moral support. However, it does not mean that I am not paying attention. I am deep in learning.

We came to a chart outlining what a tunnel could look like. On either side of the chart were replicas of chambers in the tunnels. They were small, inadequately squared or rounded out, barely enough room for someone the size of Brian or me. It was just enough to trigger the anxiety of claustrophobia. Instinctively, I began reciting names of music groups. When that did not work, I thought back to Greece and started my 5-4-3-2-1.

It was not working. At five things that I can see, all I saw was bamboo thickened into a forest, strands of fat bamboo needled into the ground like the fake hair on a Barbie doll’s head. Upon looking around, that’s all it was, a bamboo forest hovering over a wooden chart and two tight-quarters of mock tunnel chambers. I stumble a few feet in steps.  Inhale. Skip to four things I can touch. That was a big “nope” from me.  I had already been slathered in hand sanitizer as if it had been sunscreen. Plus, there was nothing that I wanted to go down into the cramped replicas to touch for stabilization.

Go ahead to three things I can hear, my mind races. There was an unfamiliar lack of birds chirping, despite being outside. I could hear frogs.  I could hear gun fire from the optional shooting range. Was that laughter nearby? Air flooded through my lungs once again as I became grounded by the eruption of laughter. Who could find cheer in such a dismal place?

“We are near the traps,” cautions Lam. She does that arm thing that all mothers who drive do to protect their child while they brake. The group ahead of us had not left as of yet. There was a large astro-turfed trap. Next to it was a small wood cover, scattered with mud and leaves. One of the tour guide had pried up a cover. Small giggles escaped the tourists crowded around. A tiny woman climbed down into the hole where the cover had been. Some people cheered. Others let out a laugh. I clearly had missed the joke. Lam’s voice was right at my ear as I leaned forward to take pictures. “This is the hide-hole.”

I was no longer listening to Lam’s voice, but now to my Uncle James’s voice, “hidey-hole,” he had called it. “A Viet Cong would hide in these holes. They would use these if they were caught outside when bombing began or could not make it back to the tunnel.  The cover would be held with two leather straps. Soldiers could sometimes walk right over a Viet Cong and not know.” I looked over at Lam. She was looking at me. She motioned for me to follow.

Lam explained to me how to the mechanism worked for the large green trap. Laughs and guffaws filtered through the frogs. What could possibly be so humorous in such a dark place? You do not come to places like the Cu Chi Tunnels in Vietnam for a comedy show. This is where people died. “Please, don’t,” said a man’s voice.  It was not very authoritative, coming out as a plea, instead of a warning command. 

One tourist stepped over the rope, despite the protests of the guide. He snapped a quick selfie and went back over the rope. He was being scolded, but still had a huge grin on his face.  His blonde hair matted to his perspiring forehead and his ruby cheeks swelled in laughter. He high-fived his friend, who started up about how chicks are going to dig his site and he’ll be the biggest influencer with these shots. The 58,320 names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington, D.C., some 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters, and as many as 2 million civilians on both sides, had to listen to this douchebag brag about impressing women on social media. He flipped over his camera for his buddy proclaiming that he had the best shot for his page. “This is totally going on my Instagram, dude!”

I filmed the trap rotating a couple of times, showing off its spiked jowls. “Those spikes look like metal. Their color look like metal, but they are actually bamboo,” Lam educated. The crowd chuckled ahead of us.

Brian asked for a restroom. His simple request broke the dense grim of being in the middle of a bamboo forest with mosquitos, puddles of stagnant water created from bombs, and death traps all around.  Compounded by the immature tourist, I will call Kevin, bragging about being in a selfie with a trap that likely killed friends of my uncle. I sat on a rock, after checking it several times, in case I should sit on a tunnel air hole or worse and actual termite mound. I previewed photographs while waiting. I realize that I had taken some great shots.

“For your social media?” I knew the voice that ask that question.

“No, Lam. For my memories,” I replied. While I did not fear Death, I feared Forgetfulness, its cousin. I had watched my own grandmother trickle downward with dementia and Alzheimer’s. My father had died the October before my graduation for bachelors degree. My Uncle James went before him, confessing his last memory of how my sisters and I came to grow up in Georgia. Aunts with throat cancer from carpet factories, old age, and natural causes, fell before him. My sister, Annie, who perished in a car accident on her day off, going to work to check on the kids she worked with, clocked out ten days after my 16^th birthday.  My mother, who had graced the world with her music, leaving my life first.  I mourned in my own way, but to forget them would hurt me most of all. “When I grow old, I want to be able to look at these on my tablet and remember the location, the experience, and you.”

I thought I heard a sniff from Lam. I looked at her and she looked away, just as Brian was coming back from the restroom. She waved to him and stood. I wondered how often Lam had to come visit this place, each time with different tourists. I wonder if they had listened and disregarded her stories, much as my sisters and cousins disregarded my uncle’s stories. How many times can you tell the same story before you yourself began to question your own memories and experience? I imagined Lam’s death at an old age, surrounded by children and loved ones telling her final story about her life during the Vietnam War. 

“Let’s go see the tunnels,” said Lam with a clap of her hands. “I will tell you all about my family living inside one.” 

ENG 379 — Travel Writing: Writing Prompt 4

Trapping the Monster

“You do know that Uncle James is flipping over in his grave right now,” said Irene, my older sister, who is two years older and six inches taller than I am.  I rolled my eyes, which she could not hear over the phone, but she probably knew I was doing it.

“Well, he isn’t here right now, now is he? He’s dead,” I retorted. It did not change the fact that I had thought about our Uncle James first when Brian, my husband, asked me to add on a week to our vacation to explore Ho Chi Minh City.

“Carmen, you hear this, right?” Irene chided at our oldest sister. You could hear Carmen’s lips smack over the three-way call. It was not as if either of their opinions would cancel my trip.

Carmen chimed in, “As I see it,” because all of her conversations in definitive favor of which side she chose began as such, “Erica has already made up her mind about where she is going. Even if Uncle James was alive, do you think that would stop her?”

Irene’s smirk was audible in the silence that ensued. I had sealed my fate long ago as the family outsider, the black Jeep of the family, the Red Devil. Among my family, I was titled as “Most Likely to Piss You Off and Send You Post Cards.” My reign as the rebel remained at one-hundred percent. Irene would blame my zodiac sign. Carmen would blame our enslaved upbringing. I would blame my passport for being so damned curious about the world. Blaming Uncle James would probably be prudent, too.

Uncle James had been a helicopter pilot for the US Army, being shot down twice, and flying for a third time. He engulfed his entire existence in remembrance of the Vietnam War. He purchased memorabilia items from whoever sold it: Franklin Mint, Time-Life, and sellers at flea markets. He watched VHS tapes of Vietnam War action until they all wore down to the point each video was marred with the demagnetized speckled stripe as they played. It was to the point that his son, the oldest of his two children, also had Vietnam flashbacks in the late 1980s at the age of ten.

Determined to teach us about the monstrous, yet innovative, people of Vietnam, his lectures were pocketed with vivid harsh language about the Vietnamese people and the descriptions of the violence of war. We were proud of Uncle James but exasperated. No media had wanted to hear his story. He was often overlooked for interviews with historians. Until he eventually settled into various jobs, ending with teaching, the family occupation.

He recounted being shot down, on the ground with his companion soldiers’ bodies dismantled either by launched grenades, land mines, or various traps set in the darkened forests. He had seen what war could do to a person, along with what it can make a person do. By the time more violent games, like Mortal Kombat, had arrived on the gaming market, we had been desensitized to the pulling out of spinal cords and exploding heads.

I could not be sure what to expect in Vietnam, after all the frightening things my uncle had told us. We were no longer at war. How readily accepting are Vietnamese of Americans, especially since I knew of plenty of Americans who despised them. I did not know if I was mentally ready to face what my uncle had witnessed firsthand. I was learning that I carried a prejudice that was not necessarily my own. It had been handed down to me, stamped in my brain like my passport at the border.

In the morning we were greeted by what looked like a lost freshman from high school. Her name was Lam. She wore a straw hat and dressed like a mix of Crocodile Hunter and a thrift store. She smiled. We smiled. We climbed into the tour van, little rust on the outside, inside smelling of lotus incense and cigarettes. Buddha, on the dashboard, ignored us and continued staring out the windshield. Our driver coughed out a greeting, patted Buddha’s fat, bald head, and cranked the van up. We began our drive along the Saigon River.

Lam introduced herself properly. We learned that she was seventeen years older than us, resembling a schoolgirl who has seen some things in her life. And she had seen some things. She was born in 1957. By the time America and my uncle had joined the war, she was eight years old. I had not been born yet. Carmen was born two years later, in 1967. When the war ended, this woman was eighteen, maybe nineteen, while I was drooling, babbling, and trying to keep my head straight enough to walk away from Irene. Lam had lived through her major developing years in a war zone. I realized that no amount of torment in the Myers household was comparable.

When we reached the Củ Chi Tunnels, it was a solemn affair outside. Words from Uncle James clouded my head. Lam did all the processing for us, wearing a smile, nodding, looking like a television version of the demure Asian.  When we passed the entrance, Lam’s expression turned suddenly. Not a smile could be found.

“I will be real with you. The media is propaganda,” she began. “You will hear things that contradict what you have learned in school in America. But, my family fought against the French and the Viet Cong.” My ears perked up because now we were getting to the part that my uncle had talked about. I was ready for this.

I was not ready at all. “My family had beautiful lands, filled with fruit trees and rice fields. I remember seeing them all mowed down when I was very young.  They dropped chemicals onto the ground with made the ground like cement,” Lam continued, stabbing her toe at the hardened soil beneath us.  I tried as well. It did not budge, not even the minute curdling of impact.

She walked us along to show us the traps. I pulled out my cellphone to record a video of a moving trap, which activated when walked on, dumping a person into a pit of sharpened bamboo. There was a lack of a breeze. The smell of old water and motor oil filled the air over the area. Lam told us that this “puddle” was a trap itself. It looked like something a kid would jump around it. She took hold of a chain, pulling it. From the pit underneath came a woven mat of sharpened bamboo as tall as Lam, scattered with bits of rusted metal.

Lam was discussing these with Brian. I was half-listening, but caught an earful of her saying, “The French did not care about whether we ate or not.  Our rice fields were turned into rubber tree groves. They only wanted rubber and cows.”

“Did your family make traps also?” I asked, pausing my videography of a door trap that I had been inspecting with the utmost attention to violent details.

“Yes,” replied Lam. “We had to protect ourselves from everyone.”  She paused for a breath. “Come, let’s see the tunnels.”

We approached the entrance of the tunnel. Lam had talked us through her history. Brian climbed down the tiny stairs to the mouth of the tunnel. I froze. I could not do this, not this tight space. Brian bent over and began duck-walking into the tunnel. My head started shaking back and forth. I began blaming my knees. Lam placed her hand on my sweaty back, pressing my linen shirt into its moist epicenter. Her hand began rubbing a large, smooth circle.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to go,” she soothed. She placed her hand on my cellphone. “I will take a picture of the entrance for you.” She went down into the trench and snapped two photos, climbed back up and handed the cellphone to me. “Did you have a relative that fought here?”

I nodded, turning away from the tunnels my uncle had told me about. Lam handed me a bottle of water. “There were many American soldiers. There was a helicopter shot down near my village. My family helped to drag some of the soldiers to our home. Those who were not badly injured, we hid them in our tunnels.  Those on the brink of death, we threw their bodies into traps to keep Viet Cong from finding those in our tunnel. We helped who we could,” she said.  I did not understand why she was telling me this story. “We are not monsters.”

A millipede crossed between us as Lam and I stood looking at each other. It had no sense of the battle between Uncle James, in my head as history, and Lam, standing before me as living history.  Both persons had been involved in this war. There were two sides to this war, two sides to this story.

“No,” I began, after a swig from the bottle of water. “You are not monsters.” Lam motioned with her hand for me to follow.  We started walking. “You had to survive. I probably would have done the same.”

When we reached a tank, positioned by a trenched chamber of mannequins making flip flop shoes from discard tires, Brian emerged from tunnel on his hands and knees. Lam was smiling again, and I paid more attention to her information. The bamboo as thick as my thighs. My mind wandered to Uncle James. He was correct, in that Vietnamese people were innovative. However, he had been wrong about them being monstrous. They were people, trying to survive, by any means necessary. I do not know if Lam’s family had helped Uncle James when he was shot down; however, I want to believe her story somehow linked us together.