BBC World Service - Heart And Soul, Wandering Souls
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Vietnam is over-run with ghosts. To pass onto the next world, you need to die well - in old age, body unblemished, the proper rituals observed. But few of the five million people killed in the Vietnam War were granted such a peaceful ending. They became 'wandering souls' - doomed to eke out an impoverished existence on the edge of the everyday world.
In this two-part series, Cathy FitzGerald travels to Vietnam to hear how survivors of the War - both Vietnamese and American - co-exist with their 'invisible neighbours', the dead.
Cathy FitzGerald hears the stories of the living - and the dead - in a country crowded with wandering souls.
Part 1 - 2011-01-13
More than 300,000 Vietnamese people are classified as Missing in Action, nearly four decades after what's known in Vietnam as the American War.
Their families still search for remains. Without a body and a proper burial, neither the dead nor the living can find peace. Worse, the ghosts are angry. Condemned to wander, they watch as those who survive them reap the benefits of economic reform. How can they make their voices heard?
Part 2 - 2011-01-20
Americans, too, are haunted. Like the Vietnamese, they search for remains and meet dead friends in their dreams.
One veteran returns to show his former enemies where Vietnamese bodies were buried in a mass grave. Others remember the 'ghost tape' broadcast from helicopters during the war - the otherworldly lament of a dead Vietnamese soldier created by a US psy-ops team to terrify their foe.
Replies
I had 2 classmates die in Viet Nam and several others who came back less than whole, My best friend was tormented by PTSD and flashbacks right up until he died last year. He drove a tank wrecker over in Nam and was captured by the Viet Kong and kept in a tiger cage in a VC POW Camp. He nearly cut off his own foot to get out of the shackle and then systematically killed all the VC in the camp and let the other POWs out. He refused the medal of Honor, stating that there was no Honor there only Horror and death. I sincerely hope he is at peace where he is now. I also worked for the VA with Viet Nam Veterans for 10 years and finally had to quit because I couldn't work in the atmosphere of inferior care for those that deserved the best care possible. ---------------------------------------------------- R
Thanks Rick. I had an uncle killed in Saigon so this is special to me....