Tom Wang

58,000 Americans died in Vietnam. Over 3,000,000 Vietnamese died. And for fifty years, American culture has centered the grief of the 58,000 while treating the 3,000,000 as a backdrop. As scenery. As context. As "the Vietnam War experience." They built a wall in Washington with American names on it. A beautiful wall. A solemn wall. Good. Mourn your dead. But understand what that wall does not say. It does not say why they died. It does not say what they were doing there. It does not say what was done in their name to the people whose country it actually was. It does not mention My Lai, where American soldiers massacred an entire village, old men, women, children, babies, and the officer who ordered it served three years of house arrest before being pardoned. Three years. House arrest. Pardoned. For five hundred people murdered in a ditch. It does not mention the 2.7 million acres of Vietnamese forest doused in Agent Orange, a chemical weapon disguised as herbicide, that is still deforming Vietnamese children today. Not in 1970. Not in 1985. Today. Children born in 2020 with bodies twisted by a war their grandparents fought. And the chemical companies that made it are still in business. Still profitable. Still un-prosecuted. And yet they send us human rights reports. They grade our democracy. They warn us about our behavior. The audacity is so enormous it becomes almost impressive. Almost.