I do not deny the fact that Ho Chi Minh is a patriot. However, I strongly oppose his way of using force to reunite Vietnam. War must be the last resort for any disagreement The war in Vietnam has created a deep wound in my heart that will probably never be healed. The images of devastated human suffering, chaotic societies, and destruction of cities and villages during the war keep coming back to my mind to form a profound resentment to any violent resolution for any conflict.

Many times, I feel so sad when thinking of terrors during the war that I cry. I really want to raise a loud voice of warning to those who may think violence is a possible resolution for any disagreement. Do not be tricked by the empty word “victory”. It could be the most shameful expression human beings ever have. Be patient, be humble, think once, think twice, and think over and over for any possible peaceful solution before thinking of violence. War must be the last resort for any disagreement because it produces agony. First, loved ones suffer. Next, war is cruel and immoral. Also, war causes loss of life and livelihood. Finally violence does not work.

First, war must be the last resort to avoid extreme suffering of loved ones. Because of love, most parents live their lives not for themselves, but for their children. Certain mothers who have serious health problems during pregnancy face a tough choice: to cure the illness, only one life can be saved, her life or her child’s. Those mothers determined to give up their lives to save their children’s. The affection of a mother to a child is so immense! Think of the parents’ feeling if their children are lost due to aggressive actions. It is painful to lose a loved one, and the pain of losing beloved people increases many fold in a terrible situation of warfare: terror, disaster, homelessness, depression, and chaos.

In the “State of the World’s Children 1996”, UNICEF reported that every conflict is a terrible nightmare for children. The report sadly explained: In Sarajevo, where almost one child in every four has been wounded in the conflict, it found that 97 percent of children had experienced shelling nearby, twenty five percent felt ‘unbearable sorrow’ and 20 percent had terrifying dreams. Some 55 percent had been shot by snipers, and 66 percent had been in a situation where they thought they would die. (Bellany) These situations can easily happen at any time to anyone if a war is currently in their country. And there are usually huge numbers of victims.

My heart was broken as I knew many soldiers and civilians had died slowly in a painful, tragic, desperate situation like “the special commando” in Phan’s story below: I dropped into a bomb crater and escaped the big bomb. Then came the baby bombs, exploding nonstop. I lay there not moving and then this guy jumped in on me, heavy as a log. I was so frightened. I stabbed him twice in the chest through his camouflage uniform, then one more in his belly, then again in the neck. He cried in pain and writhed around convulsing. I realized he’d already been badly wound before jumping in. His own artillery had flown his foot off and he was bleeding all over, even in the mouth. His hands were trying to hold in his intestines, which were spilling out of his belly and steaming. […] But this guy just moaned louder and louder, tears running down his cheeks. I was terrified and at the same time felt deep pity for him […] He blinked at me, the rain poured down his face, mixing water, tears, and blood.

Outside the crater the jungle was destroyed, with trees broken and the ground devastated. Troop from both sides had withdrawn so I searched for a while and found a bag with emergency medical equipment in it and turned to go back to help him. But it‘d been silly. By then it was dark and I had no idea where the crater was. The trees around me had broken off and branches scattered all around the place. The ground was pockmarked with hundreds of craters. Where was the one I’d shared with the Saigonese? Darkness fell, the heavy rain continued …

When dawn at last came and the rain eased. All the bomb craters were filled to the rim with water. Now, even after many years, whenever I see a flood I feel a sharp pang in my heart and think of my cruel stupidity. No human being deserved the torture I left him to suffer. (Bao 92-96) Bao-Ninh in his novel, The Sorrow of War would absolutely agree that the stress of losing a family member in a war is so great that at times, many people cannot bear that situation. And the tragedies of the Vietnam War are not different from any other war. I could not hold back my tears when thinking of the tragic fates of Mother Lanh and her daughter when Bao-Ninh recalled a visit to his godmother’s house”: […] my mother was here one fateful morning when an official arrived bringing a death certificate for my brother, her first son. She took the news badly, although she had feared and expected it. She had buoyed only by the expectation of her second son coming home soon. But a few hours later another courier arrived with a second death certificate, telling her my other brother, her second son, had also been killed. Mother collapsed in a faint, then lapsed into a coma. She hung on for three days without uttering another word then died. (Bao 53)

Though in a safe and comfortable place, the sorrow of an American mother is not less than that of a Vietnamese’s in the war torn country. Eleanor Wimbish, of Glen Burnie, Maryland, has grieved over the death of her son, William R. Stocks, for fifteen years. To relieve her sadness, she wrote a letter to her dead son telling how much she has missed and loved him, then stuck the letter under his name on Vietnam Veteran memorial in Washington D.C. (Wimbish). The suffering of children in Sarajevo, the tragic fate of “mother Lanh”, the grievous live of Mrs. Wimbish, and the painful death of the “special commando” raise a big question: What is war for? Life or death? Happiness or misery? Next, war is cruel and immoral, which is why it should not be tolerated. War shows no mercy and can turn good-natured people into cruel soldiers. The scenarios of battles are so very horrible and disastrous that they have, at times, haunted victims and interrupted their normal life. War has no mercy on human distresses just as guns and ammunition have no conscience. When in a rage of vengeance for losses, innocent civilians, children, the elderly, and the suffered enemies alike can be targets of cruel slaughter. Many times, brutal murders occurred just because the innocent victims were on the enemy’s side. Insensitive killers may be formerly known as gracious men. It is the nature of war.

It is not surprising that reports of massacres and mass graves are abundant in any war: Iraq, Kashmir, Kosovo, Sudan, Somalia, etc. The cold-hearted manslaughters at My-Lai, Thanh-Phong, and Hue in Vietnam, for examples, are among unavoidable disasters during a war. In Iraq, we all know that insurgents have brutally executed whoever associates with the U.S. as long as the hostilities can serve their goal: terrorizing the country. Victims can be a desperate, chronically unemployed father looking for a chance to support his family, a U.N. humanitarian relief worker on duty, or an impartial news reporter searching for the truth, etc. In Vietnam, at Hue city, during the brief Tet offensive’s occupation of Hue-25 days- the Vietnamese communists dreadfully murdered 2,500 people, mostly civilians. They were buried in mass graves. Another 3,500 were missing and their bodies have never been found (Massacre). At My-Lai 500 villagers were rounded up and killed (Linder).

At Thanh-Phong village, twenty-one unarmed civilians were killed. And if former Senator Bob Kerry did not have the ambition to run for president, the public would never have heard of the slaughter. One may wonder how many unreported massacres happen in a war. Sadly, what the public knows about the number of massive murders in a war is merely the tip of the iceberg. Also, war is wrong because of the loss of life and livelihood. The casualties of any war are great and immeasurable, especially in a country with prolonged warfare such as Vietnam. And to be responsible for those injured, disabled veterans and civilian victims is an overwhelming burden for generations. During the Vietnam War about 2 million Vietnamese were killed, nearly one million Communist Veterans were disabled because of wounds in action (Bui 96).

According to Tin Bui, a former North Vietnam Army Colonel and a former Deputy Director of a main Vietnam official daily newspaper, The People, the Vietnam government could barely support such a high number of handicapped veterans. Therefore, those veterans were left to live in poverty, hardship and misery with little benefit. He further stated that it was the government’s crime; an ungrateful act of the communist party and the government to those who sacrificed parts of their bodies, their youth; and shed their blood for the country’s interests (96). War costs not only lives and causes mournful situations; war loots people’s livelihood, destroys cities, burns villages, damages the environment, and triggers chaos in societies. The battered countries would be destined to the circle of destruction, distress, underdevelopment and poverty. What miserable victims in a war-torn country have worked hard to earn, to save and to build for years, for decades, could be heaps of rubble or burning ash in a matter of hours or days. Thirty years after the war, Vietnam’s economy is still in shambles. Consequences of warfare remain an unbearable hardship for the Vietnamese. For twenty-one years of fighting, the Vietnamese learned to kill each other, their brothers and sisters; and the skills they earned were destroying the cities and villages, the land of their father and forefather. What the Vietnamese were left with after the war amounted to rubble.

And they had to build almost everything from the beginning. In addition to the destruction, the devastated situations are more tragic because the priorities of the conflicted nations are no longer the welfare of their people. Instead military expenditure and killings are the main concerns. In order to support war, the majority of the country’s resources and strengths are used to support military campaigns and defense, to purchase weapons like guns, fighting tanks, ammunition and bombs.

Those war tools are used to ruin each other instead of building the nations, creating jobs, investing in education, funding health care and supporting research to improve production and quality of life. These distressful situations for chronic warfare nations have been confirmed by Mohamed Suliman of Institute for African Alternatives, in the United Kingdom, when he concluded that with persistent fighting, even a resourceful country with a small number of inhabitants like Sudan, hardly provide means of living to support its people (Suliman). Moreover, constant violence has laid enormous hardship on civilians. There would be tremendous reduction of production to support human lives and to build the country due to the fact that workers would likely be combatants. They may be unemployed in vast numbers because of displaced situations; or because their workplaces have constantly been under military operation. In Vietnam, peasants had to work diligently cultivating crops barely enough for survival. However, in certain areas, because of guerrilla’s defiance, they had to pay taxes to both governments: the local communists collected their taxes at night to support their local rebellious strategies; the Republic of Vietnam took their taxes during the day to operate the villages. In addition, their crops were often destroyed in battles. What a miserable life!

Finally, war is wrong because it does not work and because people’s hearts cannot be won by force. Violence does not bring peace. Instead, hostile actions deepen the wounds of conflicts, create more enemies, and increase instability. Each suicide bombing in Israel’s territory is responded to with deadly raids in Palestinian areas. Terrorism in Iraq did not deter the Iraqis from going to the voting booths. Every attack of vengeance in India between Hindus and Muslims is returned with a similar retaliation. Military raids in Kashmir further escalated friction between India and Pakistan. Violence did not bring the two neighboring countries to the negotiation table; but the peaceful efforts from world leaders did.

Three thousand years ago Buddha declared, “If hate is treated with hate, hatred piles up; if hate is treated with love, the hatred dissolves.” Can non-violent efforts ever succeed? Non-violent efforts, which cost almost nothing in comparison with the cost of warfare, have proved successful. That is how Nelson Mandela in South America ceased apartheid in South Africa. That is how Mahatma Gandhi gained independence for India from British domination. That is the way Martin Luther King Jr. won equality for ethnic minorities in the United States. The communist world collapsed by itself because democracy has demonstrated superiority.

The downfall of communism has encouraged more and more prominent loyalists to the communist party to criticize their leaders for raising the Vietnam War that wasted two million lives and twenty years of conflict. If North Vietnam claimed that communism was an advantage for Vietnam, it should demonstrate success to economy and living standards instead of the advancement in violence. Once South Vietnam could recognize the North’s apparent supremacy, the efforts of reuniting Vietnam would have passed as smoothly and peacefully as the reunification of Germany.

In conclusion, War must be the last resort because the sufferings and the negative impact of warfare is too great for human beings to bear. Do not be victimized by ambitious politicians. Hitler’s racism turned his country and the world into a nightmare. Polpot’s path to communist paradise was paving with 2 million murdered corpses. Ho Chi Minh’s promises for Vietnam’s future are merely products of unrealistic imagination. Mankind suffers enough with all kinds of natural disasters such as, famine, tsunami, flood, earthquake, tornado etc. Do not add man-made catastrophe to the misery. If disagreement occurs, act in a way that pleases each other. Enjoy your life and help others enjoy theirs. If you do not believe in God, it is the appropriate way to live because life is so short. If you believe in God, it is God’s will “to love your neighbor as yourself.” Once a decision for violence is made, our fates are doomed to become a nightmare for all.

Works Cited Bao, Ninh. The Sorrow of War. trans. Phan Thanh Thao. Ed. Frank Palmos. New York: River Head Books, 1996: 233-53, 92-96 Bellany, Carol. “The Trauma of War: Children in War.” The State of the World Children 1996. 1996. UNICEF.2Apr. 2005 Bui, Tin. Hoa xuyen Tuyet. Paris: Turpin Press, 1995: 332- 96 Linder, Douglas “My-Lai Courts Martial 1970.” Famous American Trials. 1999. U of History-Kansas Law School. 2 Apr. 2005. . “Massacre at Hue.” 14 Apr. 2005. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 6 May 2005 . Sulivan, Mohamed. “Resources.” Civil War in Sudan: The Impact of Ecological Degradation. Ed. Ali B. Ali-Dinar. African Study Center 18 Dec. 1994. U of Pennsylvania. 6 May 6, 2005 . Wimbish, Eleanor. “The tragedies of War.” Comp. Cedric Hodgeman. Vietnam: the Impossible War. Apr. 1999. 2 Apr. 2005. .