We have been pretty good about shielding the kids from the more difficult parts of Vietnam's history. (We probably made a bad call, on balance, taking them to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum in Hanoi...but we managed to skim through the creepy white-beard-dead-body part and focus on the area and the men dressed in sharp white clothes... We'll be very careful in HCMC, taking turns on the war museum there.)
But when it came to Hue, without thinking, I made the mistake of reading about the historic city's Citadel we were about to visit out loud over breakfast from the Lonely Planet guide book:
During the 3 and 1/2 weeks that the North controlled the Citadel, more than 2,500 people were summarily shot, clubbed to death or buried alive....The USA and South Vietnamese responded by leveling whole neighbourhoods, battering the Citadel and even using napalm on the imperial palace. Approximately 10,000 people died in Hue, including thousands of VC troops, 400 South Vietnamese soldiers, and 150 US Marines-- but most of those killed were civilians.
I was deep in thought, reflecting on some of the other horrors I'd been reading about from the war as they relate to the Coast we were about to visit, when Glen and I noticed Mac was not himself. He couldn't really articulate what was wrong, but he needed to be cuddled and he silent cried for a good long while. Ever since, he's had a lot of questions and fear about death and we've had to really buffer him from anything dark, even at temples etc. The wee lad talks a lot about guns, light sabers, and fighting with dad, but truly, his heart is as sweet and gentle as Savannah's.
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Xoxo
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