Over 8 billion people eat, speak, laugh, cry, and hold conflicting ideas about what matters. At any moment, a baby is being born, a grandmother is passing away. Someone is feeling lonely, lost, or fleeing for their life in a war zone. In the midst of it all, most of us must decide what to do with our hands—hands that feed us, comfort the sick, swat away mosquitoes. Tools of kindness or violence.
In the midst of the Vietnam War, a tall blond American soldier stood on the battlefield, expressionless. With his left hand, he’d held up the bloodied remnants of a Vietnamese man—his body blasted apart, leaving only a head, an arm, and loose skin barely holding together. The soldier gripped him by his chest skin, his head lolling back, his arm dangling. He held him up as if it was an everyday thing to do, seemingly indifferent that it used to be a person. I guess that’s why people say, “They’ve got blood on their hands.” The photographer who used his hands to capture this moment probably had no idea it would end up in a museum years later.
Among the 125 images displayed in the War Crimes exhibit in War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, I couldn’t look away from this one. It captured the sheer horror of war, and the capacity for human cruelty. A man from my own country holding up the mangled remains of another human wasn’t on my bingo card for 2025. It is still burned into my brain.
I came to this museum because I believe in trying to see the full picture of historical events, not just what one government wants its citizens know. With nine permanent exhibits, and various special collections, this museum spanned three floors. Previous iterations of this museum were called the Exhibition House for U.S. and Puppet Crimes and the Exhibition House for Crimes of War and Aggression. Outside the entrance, visitors are encouraged to walk amongst military aircraft, vehicles, weapons, and bombs reclaimed from the war. The Northrop F-5A Jet Fighter and the A-37 Fighter-Bomber, originally operated by the South Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF), were now displayed with U.S. Air Force markings. Interesting. In a separate corner, bombs were laid out in piles and visitors could learn more about each type by pressing buttons on a panel. It included the biggest bomb I’ve ever seen, a 15,000 lb BLU-82, used to clear landing zones (among other things).
Inside the museum, the first exhibit I visited was Stories of Anti-War Badges. Buttons, newspaper clippings, and protest memorabilia from the U.S. documented American opposition to the war, from students killed by police during the Kent State and Jackson State protests, to Ivy League professors petitioning the government to end the violence. It also delved into global anti-war protests, including those in Cuba. Yet, I noticed there was no mention of anti-war sentiment in Vietnam itself at the time. This was expected, given how both Ho Chi Minh’s government in the North and Ngo Dinh Diem’s in the South kept tight control over internal political expression. The pervasive nature of the war and nationalistic attitudes meant that even if there was interest, organizing large-scale protests in Vietnam would have been nearly impossible.
After wandering around the room for a while, I went upstairs to the next exhibit: War Crimes. There was a somber hush amongst the visitors as they looked at pictures and video footage portraying crimes in the Vietnam War. Information plaques told the stories of notable events, like U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey’s involvement in the Thanh Phong massacre in 1969. In the dead of night, he and his Navy SEAL unit mutilated and killed Vietnamese civilians, including children. A cement vat, about the size of a refrigerator, stood beside a photo showing two of the children who had hidden in it during the attack. 30 years later, Kerrey admitted that civilians were killed but denied personally executing anyone. In his words, “We fired, and we continued to fire. It is not something I’m proud of.” There are conflicting eye-witness accounts of what happened that night. But regardless, the photo of the two girls inside the tank exists there upon the wall, as well as photos of dead Vietnamese citizens from the morning after.
Other images showed similarly brutal moments: U.S. soldiers dragging suspected Viet Cong fighters behind a tank, piles of bodies along empty roads, soldiers posing with severed heads – bodies lying just feet away. There was no censorship, just a room full of graphic pictures depicting inhuman acts by other humans. The exhibit focused almost entirely on American war crimes. There were no photographs of the Hue Massacre, where the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Viet Cong executed between 2,800 and 6,000 South Vietnamese civilians suspected of being loyal to the Saigon government. No mention of the mistreatment of South Vietnamese and American POWs, including brutal beatings, starvation, forced labor, and psychological torture. No coverage of the Viet Cong’s terror tactics, like bombings of civilian areas in Saigon and other cities. But there was plenty of footage of American soldiers either carrying out orders or disobeying orders to commit war crimes.
Nearby there was the Requiem Exhibition, dedicated to remembering Vietnam war photographers, some of whom were killed or went missing. The bravery of these war photographers (and war photographers in general) cannot be overstated. It was a testament to the courage of photographers, coming from all over the world to document important moments during the war. Clippings from US newspapers decorated the walls, as well as stand-alone copies of Vietnam war photographs. This was the first war that people could follow along with at home, and some of the American news footage was shown next to photographs of the same event.
Next, the Historical Truths collection provided context to the war. Newspaper clippings, images, and U.S. soldiers’ testimonies covered the walls, providing a broader (but not complete) picture of the war’s origins. For those who didn’t live through these events, here’s a simplistic summary of what happened:
The U.S. initially supported South Vietnam against the communist North, but growing dissatisfaction with President Ngô Đình Diệm’s authoritarian rule and repression led to a coup in 1963, resulting in his assassination. After the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964—where alleged attacks on U.S. ships provided justification for escalation—President Lyndon B. Johnson significantly increased American military involvement in Vietnam.
At the time, Vietnam was divided: the North, backed by the Soviet Union and China, saw communism as the path to both self-rule and unification, while the South, supported by the U.S., aimed to establish a non-communist government. However, the Viet Cong, a communist guerrilla force operating in the South, waged an insurgency against the South Vietnamese government with assistance from North Vietnam.
The U.S. justified its involvement through the Domino Theory, fearing that if Vietnam fell to communism, neighboring countries like Laos and Cambodia would follow. However, American leaders failed to recognize that for many North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters, the war was less about spreading communism and more about achieving independence and resisting foreign influence—having already fought against French colonial rule and Japanese occupation in previous decades.
A watered down version of this history was included in the Historical Truths exhibit.
John happened to text me in the middle of Historical Truths, letting me know that he’d just entered the museum. We’d split up in the morning to do our own things, as he wanted to see the Independence Palace and I wanted to explore Ho Chi Mihn City. I was very happy to see him. I didn’t think we’d be there at the same time. As we progressed through the rest of the museum, we took breaks between each exhibit. Number 1, we are getting old and our joints aren’t what they used to be. 2, we needed to decompress.
We went into the second hardest exhibit to witness, together – Effects of Agent Orange. Again pictures lined the walls, this time revealing the effects of Agent Orange on individuals. A man with a bulbous tumor growing where his nose should be, nostrils displaced hung near a picture of conjoined twins. These twins, joined at the waist, were on display in the corner of the room – kept in a glass container filled with formaldehyde. A picture of a woman with severe burns down her back was shown near a row of individuals with physical birth defects. Under each photo there was a description of who the person was, and what the effects of Agent Orange had been for them. And you know who one of the companies was that manufactured this herbicide from 1965-1969? Monsanto. The same company who had to pay over 10 billion dollars in 2020, to settle legal claims related to Roundup, an herbicide containing glyphosate. They were truly the worst.
I went through some of the exhibits a second time with John. Walking through a museum largely dedicated to my country’s atrocities was both humbling and eye-opening. Knowing that visitors from all over the world were reading about these horrors alongside me—while also remembering that many of the American soldiers were freshly 18—left me tangled in a mess of conflicting thoughts and emotions.
This museum made me think about how information is shared and for what purpose. It was designed to elicit an emotional response while presenting images of real events. There was no AI-generated content or Photoshop in the pictures I saw—but the captions beneath them could be shaped to emphasize certain narratives. There is no doubt that American soldiers, Navy SEALs, and Air Force pilots committed horrific atrocities during the Vietnam War, including rape, mass executions, and torture. Using Gen Z slang: “they’ve got receipts”—no one can argue with that. It is both necessary and valuable to shed light on these crimes. But it also made me wonder: Why portray the war primarily as an external invasion and leave out the internal conflict between two opposing governments?
One aspect of the museum that stood out to me was its focus on American soldiers who also wanted the war to end. Through anecdotal stories, it highlighted moments where U.S. soldiers defied their commanders to protect Vietnamese civilians or later returned to Vietnam as tourists. The section on Agent Orange didn’t only focus on its effects on the Vietnamese; it also acknowledged the suffering of American soldiers and their families.
Overall, the museum made me think critically about America by presenting photographs of what happened overseas during the war, while still simplifying or downplaying the internal Vietnamese conflict. It left me questioning not just what is remembered, but how—and why—history is framed the way it is.
-W