Into the Unknown, With and Without Bombs
Into the Unknown, With and Without Bombs LINH DINH [Khum Saob, Cambodia on 10/13/23] In the early 70’s, Cambodians went berserk on their Vietnamese minority. Murdering hundreds, they tossed bodies, often headless, into the Mekong. Sailing upriver to Phnom Penh , the South Vietnamese Navy brought thousands back to Vietnam, while the North Vietnamese Army also rescued a few. Cambodians were enraged the Vietnam War had spilled into their country. With North Vietnam using a huge swath of Cambodia for its Ho Chi Minh Trail, American bombs rained down, massacring thousands of Cambodians. Cambodians had also not forgotten a third of Vietnam had once been theirs. In Kracheh, I’ve met a 55-year-old Vietnamese who lived through all this. Selling fish, his mom was a rich merchant who fed North Vietnamese troops stationed in this area. He showed me a bridge destroyed by American bombs. When the bombardment got too intense in 1973, his family was moved by the NVA to an area ...