Children are often the forgotten casualties of war, and the line between friends and enemies isn’t always clear.
When I was 16, my father died of cancer. Today, it would be presumed to be related to Agent Orange, the deadly defoliant America dropped on Vietnam during the war, endangering millions — friends and foe alike. When he died, my father and I weren’t on the greatest of terms. He was an authoritative military man, and I was an obstinate teenager. Toss in raging adolescent hormones, 11 moves in 15 years on three continents and the fear of losing a parent, and you can imagine the flames on that metaphorical fire.
Our relationship wasn’t always that way. Lieutenant Colonel Louis “Bud” Musil was a hands-on kind of dad. He was up at 5 a.m. cooking chicken gizzards (for the extra protein) before my swim meets in San Francisco, California. He made sure our cocker spaniel Penny flew across the Atlantic Ocean with us, no matter the cost. And he and my mother dragged our tiny, whining bodies to every temple, museum and monument across Europe and Southeast Asia, including the World War II concentration camp memorial in Dachau when I was 10 — all because Bud Musil was no “ugly American.”
He wanted to make sure we saw the good and the bad in the world; the causes and consequences of war, not just the platitudes. He joined every cross-cultural friendship group he could find. To this day, my heart skips a beat every time I pass an airport, and I detest nationalism. Cultural preservation is one thing, but there’s a very thin line between patriotism and xenophobia.
L: Donna, Dena, and Tisa Musil enjoy the artwork in Paris, circa 1969; M: Major Louis F. “Bud” Musil in Bad Kreuznach, Germany in 1969; R: Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site in Germany, circa 1969. Photos courtesy of the Musil family.
When I was 7, my father went to Vietnam for a year. He was a military lawyer assigned to a combat unit with the 173rd Airborne Brigade (AKA the “Sky Soldiers”) during some of the bloodiest battles of the war. He slept on a cot in a tent that also served as their legal office and courtroom. His duties ranged from investigating American war crimes to managing the debts of soldiers struggling to stay alive in the North Vietnamese Army-covered hills of the Central Highlands. In 10 months, he tried 103 courts-martial and reviewed 942 Article 15s, then focused on rehabilitating the convicted, saving many a military career.
Apparently, he did a decent job. In a recommendation for a Bronze Star, an eyewitness claimed Bud Musil’s approach “was marked by a maturity, wisdom, fairness and understanding of human nature in a degree rarely found in individuals of his age and experience.” The eyewitness said he had an “intense interest in judiciously safeguarding both [the] rights of the individual and the interests of the United States government” and was truly a “soldier’s advocate.”
L: Major Bud Musil on board a helicopter in Vietnam, circa 1967; M: 173rd Airborne soldiers pull duty in Dak To, Vietnam, circa 1967; R: Major Bud Musil’s desk in Vietnam, circa 1967. Photos courtesy of the Musil family.
Viewing the War from the Other Side
In January 2019, my husband and I took a trip to north and central Vietnam. I hesitate to call it a vacation. We did a few touristy things: We took an intimate cruise on a junket ship in Halong Bay, we saw a traditional water puppet show in Yen Duc village and we shopped ‘til we dropped amongst the balustrades and bougainvillea of Hoi An. But we also wanted to explore the more tragic and bittersweet aspects of what the Vietnamese call the “American War.”
We weren’t naïve about military conflict. My mother-in-law was a pretty blonde, blue-eyed teenager when the Russians and Mongols invaded Berlin at the end of World War II and raped thousands of pretty blonde, blue-eyed teenagers. My father’s best friend died in Vietnam, and after the war, I watched my dad drink himself to sleep every night with a good book and a better gin and tonic. I had also spent 20 years documenting the emotional and psychological influences of trauma and war on military children and families, so my husband and I knew the consequences of war, one step removed.
What we didn’t know, though, could fill an encyclopedia.
Top L: Halong Bay, Vietnam; Top R: Water puppet show in Yen Duc Village; Bottom L: Lanterns in Hoi An, Vietnam; Bottom R: Donna Musil learns to make pottery in Hoi An, Vietnam. Photos courtesy of Donna Musil and Chris Kyrios.
We started at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi. I didn’t know much about Ho Chi Minh (the Vietnamese revolutionary and first President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) at the time, but as we toured his austere home and read about his travels to France and his admiration of America’s Founding Fathers, I couldn’t help but note the irony of America backing the South Vietnamese capitalist republic instead of the North Vietnamese communist republic who fought for and won their country’s independence from the French and Japanese, as we did the British.
My husband, meanwhile, was repeatedly waving hello and counting to 10 in English with dozens of young schoolchildren waiting in line at the mausoleum. The guards wouldn’t crack a smile, but the kids and their teachers were delightful.
Top L: Letter from Ho Chi Minh to President Harry S. Truman, 02/28/1946; Top R: Ho Chi Minh; Bottom: Vietnamese schoolchildren laugh and exchange greetings with us, as we wait to see the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Photo courtesy of Chris Kyrios.
As we entered the mausoleum in a hushed, straight line, I was surprised to see the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh lying there, as if he could wake up any moment and invite you for tea. Maintaining this perception takes a lot of work, apparently. For the last six years of the war, his body was hidden in a cave, and still must be transported to Russia every year for two to three months of maintenance; however, Ho Chi Minh specifically asked to be cremated in his will. He lived a modest life and wanted his ashes buried in three simple urns in the hills of northern, central, and southern Vietnam. Instead, his mummified body lies inside a glass casket, where thousands of visitors and devotees come to pay their respects.
The Hanoi Hilton
Our next stop was Hoa Lo Prison, or the “Hanoi Hilton,” where Senator John McCain was held captive for five years after crashing into downtown Hanoi’s Truc Bach Lake during a bombing run. Built by the French, the prison also housed scores of Vietnamese who fought for and eventually won their independence at Dien Bien Phu. As our young guide led us through the dark, dank cells, I recalled similar heartbreaking tales of brutality and brotherhood at the National Infantry Museum in Columbus, Georgia, U.S., the memorial at Dachau in Germany, and in countless other museums around the world.
I suppose that’s what John McCain was doing when he tried to normalize relations between the United States and Vietnam over two dozen visits following his release. When McCain died in 2018, hundreds of Vietnamese well-wishers left flowers and incense at the monument in Hanoi that marks his capture. I don’t think anyone forgot the cruelty and carnage inherent in every conflict, but I guess they decided to make the best of a bad situation and focus on the future they faced, if not the one for which they had fought.