just today, while walking out for lunch, i felt a sense of gratefulness that i'm living in singapore.
being in vietnam and cambodia, i have seen the horrors of war and genocide.

in a way, i am thankful for the photographers who risked and lost their lives during the vietnam war to capture shots of these horrific acts and their strong desire to present an objective view of the war to people back home. they did justice to the innocent- albeit at the expense of their lives.

of deformed babies (preserved in jars) affected by chemical warfare,

of indiscriminate massacres whose victims were normal villagers.

photographs depicted clearly the fears of the blindfolded victims a few seconds before they were shot dead. their look of fear penetrate through you. it is like a plea, a silent scream to you that they don't wish to die yet.


i had previously seen this award-winning photograph in my history notes. it shows South Vietnamese soldiers shooting a Vietcong. while i was in Vietnam, and in the reunification palace, i was watching a video- and never did i ever think i would see the play by play of the actual gunshot scene.

the sound of gunshot still rings through my ears.

i still see the vietcong falling to the side before my eyes.

horrific scenes, definitely. someone asked me why i wished to see the war remnants museum, and the killing fields in cambodia, thinking i relished gore and sheer morbidity.

i didn't know how to answer then, really. i only knew i studied went through events in history class, and that people never learn as history kept repeating itself. i heard, that on the walls of the prisons used for the genocide in cambodia, there is this sentence written: "it goes to show that people never learn, i should know; i'm german."

there is this tower in the killing fields of cambodia, where 17000 skulls of the executed are kept. skulls where you can see gunshot holes in them, hacked cuts in them. all arranged according to their ages, and gender.

mass graves. one for those whose heads were missing. one for children and women whose majority were naked. and the list goes on.. there was even a tree where a loudspeaker was hung so that the sounds would drown the moans and cries of those who were about to be executed.

i can't put into words exactly how i felt at the war remnants museum in vietnam. the photos move you, the people in them seem to be making a plea to you and there were so much emotion captured in that single still shot.

honestly, i've grown through these visits, as ironic as it may sound. maybe it was the sense that i could sense Death in those photos and the fear-striken expressions in the masses that i must say that it is through those eyes that i have begun to comprehend the true message behind peace; it is not a message to be brushed aside. many have paid for war; with their lives and relatives.

these places serve as a reminder to us that
peace is not to be taken for granted.