A small ensemble played the lobby of the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, the musicians in a loose half-circle, their airy and upbeat sound driven by a keyboard player who had no eyes.
His upper face was a smooth mask, a mouth and nose and chin but just skin where there should have been eyes. The other players had different deformities – stubs for legs, clubs for hands, crooked spines. Many had mangled mouths.
All of them were victims of dioxin, the hell chemical in 20 million gallons of poison sprayed over Vietnam during our time there. I visited in late 2010, more than 35 years after the fall of Saigon, and many of the musicians were clearly born long after we choppered off the embassy roof. Maybe they all were. None were NVA or VC.
Inside the museum were photos of other profound and inhuman Agent Orange horrors – fetal disfigurements, forever suffering, cruel death, cruel life. There were photos from My Lai I’d never seen – uncensored massacre photos – different wasted-babies-in-the-ditch photos.
There were jagged bomb fragments on display behind glass, relics of the eight million tons of bombs we dropped on North and South Vietnam. A lot of it from B-52s that are now dropping bombs on Iran.
Same planes. Different ordinance. Same ideas.
Rolling Thunder, Epic Fury.
American Carnage.
Death from above for other people’s kids.
Interviewed for the 1974 Vietnam doc Hearts and Minds, General William Westmoreland infamously said on camera: “Well, the Oriental doesn’t put the same high price on life as does the Westerner … As the philosophy of the Orient expresses it, life is not important.”
Asked by the filmmakers if the U.S. had “learned anything from all this,” a Marine Corps combat pilot 52 years ago said, “I think we’re trying not to.”
“I think Americans have worked extremely hard not to see the criminality that their officials and their policy makers have exhibited.”
Asked about a Tomahawk missile that killed more than 100 girls at an Iranian school, Donald Trump said, “Based on what I’ve seen, it was done by Iran.”
The mother of two children killed at that school told the UN, “My heart burns with pain.”
“No mother is prepared to hear the words: ‘Your child is not coming back.’”
“They are toast and they know it,” said Princeton graduate Pete Hegseth.
Says Trump, “We’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out.”
***
The lobby of the Mishawaka Fieldhouse has a beer cart. It has a branded concession stand. There is parking for about 1,000 cars out front. Today a coffee truck is stationed at the entrance.
And the place is packed, a busy, striving hive for a Sunday morning travel basketball tournament – kid baseball and volleyball and soccer teams also in the giant building for indoor practice. Half the plates out-of-state.
A river of time and expense coursing through this Costco outpost of the Youth Sports Industrial Complex. All the gear. All the pro coaching and private drills and batting practice. All the hotel rooms. I saw several moms in full makeup. Everyone in sportswear, most with team logos.
A social scene and lifestyle. A total commitment.
I watched a hulking 13-year-old take one-handed batting practice. I watched an 8-year-old hitter coached after every swing.
NIL deals for high school and middle school students have not yet come to Indiana.
But a family can dream.
Like the president says, “We’re doing this for the future.”
Music: “War Pigs/Luke’s Wall” by Black Sabbath
