I remember seeing many American sailors and soldiers when we were on vacation in Penang (during my schoolboy days). In the Vietnam period, you could see these servicemen in touristy (and shady) places, be it in Bangkok, Penang, Singapore, or elsewhere. They needed a break from the war – on R&R (Rest and Recuperation). I could remember some of their faces – many of them were just lads. The average age of the 58,148 servicemen killed in the war was 22.1 years.
My father was an avid reader. One of the magazines he subscribed was Life. I can recall vividly the infamous one-week display of faces of servicemen killed in action in the whole of Vietnam. The Life magazine article triggered waves of street protests in the U.S. (Many people thought the portraits of dead soldiers represented the casualties on Hamburger Hill.) Life did not (of course) publish the faces of dead Vietnamese soldiers and civilians, which were many times more.
The battle on Hill 937 (Hamburger Hill, 13-20 May 1969) marked the turning point in the Vietnam War – the gathering momentum of the anti-war movement. The controversy began on the U.S. home front even before the 10-day bloody battle had ended in Vietnam. (The hill battle got its nickname because of the intensity of the fighting, in what soldiers dubbed as a “human meat grinder” – American soldiers cut down by enemy machine gunfire.
Many observers thought the Americans lost the Vietnam War at home rather than on the battlefields thousands of miles away. There was a widespread lack of support for a foreign war that ordinary Americans could not identify with the politicians’ ideological cause. The free press fuelled and accelerated the ultimate defeat of the Americans on the battlefield.
The closing chapters of the Vietnam War shattered my image of the Americans who were portrayed as invincible heroes. So, the “good guys” lost, and the “bad guys” – the commies won. There must be a moral somewhere.
The coincidence is uncanny. As the Battle of Hamburger Hill raged, another image-shattering event started on the streets of Kuala Lumpur, the May 13 racial riots, which was also a turning point in Malaysian history. This landmark event and subsequent unfolding events made significant impacts on my life and the lives of many other people I know.
The Battle of Hamburger Hill was the beginning of the end of war in Vietnam. Peace finally returned to the war-weary Vietnamese after years of fighting the French and the Americans.
The Malaysians were not so fortunate. May 13 was the beginning – and Malaysians are still enduring the racial problems that festered on to this day.
Vince
Dr Vincent Chong is a retired Professor of Radiology at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore.
