The War That Never Ended: Tracing Memory in Central Vietnam

Jungwon Kim is a Program II major in the class of 2029. Jungwon is one of our 2026 Human Rights Summer Research Grant winners and a featured guest blogger. Grant winners will be sharing an inside look into their experiences on the Duke Human Rights Blog this summer and fall as part of our Student Stories: Summer Research Series. 

“Why Vietnam, now?” This is the question I’ve heard most often when I tell people I am working on a project about the Vietnam War. The war ended more than 50 years ago, and our generation has no direct memory of it. In South Korea, the soldiers who were deployed to Vietnam are remembered as heroes who brought much-needed currency into the country after the Korean War. 

President Lyndon B. Johnson turned the Vietnam War into the “American War,” a war of attrition. The United States used three times the amount of bombs in Vietnam as it did during World War II. This part of the story is the one I am used to — the one many of us know. Even as a Korean international student, I was aware of the devastating legacy of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. However, it was not until Professor Tran asked me whether I knew about the massacres committed by Korean soldiers during the war that I realized the magnitude of a part of the story I had never learned — one involving my own country. 

As an advocate for justice for survivors of the Japanese military sexual slavery system, often referred to as “comfort women,” I was shocked to learn about allegations of rape and sexual violence committed by South Korean soldiers against Vietnamese women. I was also disturbed to learn about the term Lai Đại Hàn, which has been used to refer to children born to Vietnamese women and South Korean men during the war. These discoveries instilled in me a sense of guilt and an urge to act in solidarity. 

For me, solidarity means learning the truth and sharing it. Because Korea was under military rule for nearly 30 years, the narrative was limited. Even when the truth began to surface, journalists faced tremendous aggression; Hankyoreh, the news company that first reported these cases, was attacked by veterans, causing about 70 million won (approximately USD 60,000) in damage. Koreans were not ready for the truth; the trauma of deployed soldiers was never addressed, and the next generation was never given a chance to learn. 

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The research process has been taxing — not only in finding sources, but also in reading stories of people whose intestines were ripped open, families who had to pretend to be dead while watching their loved ones being raped and then shot, and accounts of Korean soldiers pushing bodies with bulldozers. I even dreamed about it. However, the more I encountered the contrast between survivors’ testimonies and the heroic reminiscences in Korean veterans’ blog posts, the more determined I became to travel to Vietnam and see these sites for myself. 

Before visiting villages where massacres occurred, I went to two museums in Da Nang — the Da Nang Museum and the War Memorial. What surprised me the most, however, was not what I first saw, but what people called the war. My Vietnamese friend told me that in Vietnam, people call it “Kháng chiến chống Mỹ,” short for “Cuộc Kháng Chiến Chống Mỹ Cứu Nước,” which translates to “The War of Resistance Against America to Save the Nation.” Referring to it simply as the “Vietnam War” is considered an oversimplification that many people find offensive. 

The Da Nang Museum calls it “The Resistance War Against American Aggression (1954–1975),” and the War Memorial refers to it as the victory of the 5th Region’s troops against the U.S. imperialists’ strategy of “local warfare.” 

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The Da Nang Museum focuses heavily on the imprints of war, atrocities, and the lasting impacts of Agent Orange. Among the documented cases are survivors of massacres committed by Korean soldiers in the villages of Hà My and Bình Hòa. In Hà My, 135 civilians were killed, and in Bình Hòa, 430 civilians — most of them women and children. None of these cases have been officially acknowledged or apologized for by either government, and they are relegated to a small corner of the wall. 

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The War Memorial, on the other hand, displays images of Vietnamese soldiers hunting American troops, scenes of booby traps, and weapons used in combat. Built to commemorate Ho Chi Minh’s victory, the museum presents a strikingly heroic narrative. It also includes letters written to Vietnamese soldiers calling for revenge for massacres committed by Korean troops. 

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These visits in Da Nang stand in stark contrast to the War Memorial of Korea in Yongsan, which displays slogans such as: “If you don’t protect yourself, no one else will protect you,” referring to South Vietnam; “Where our help was rooted, peace and hope came to dwell”; “Courtesy of your service in Vietnam, the fatherland stands tall with pride today!”; “Global peace with the ROK Armed Forces”; and “In order to contribute to world peace and requite the aid received from our allies during the Korean War, the Republic of Korea dispatched its forces to Vietnam.” These slogans demonstrate how Korea’s involvement has been justified and remembered with pride, without any mention of the massacres committed by Korean soldiers. A significant portion of the exhibition is devoted to “volunteer” activities carried out in local villages — such as transplanting rice seedlings, planting crops, and building roads — which the exhibition presents as efforts to gain local support. 

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What I began to question is who chooses to remember on behalf of the victims, and what gives them the authority to narrate these stories. The act of remembrance itself can become another form of violence. In other words, war does not end when the bombing stops. One might argue that war never truly ends — and perhaps that is the enduring impact it leaves behind. I carry with me names rarely heard in Korea, names carved into stone and now covered with weeds. 

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What it means for me to be Korean — a generation that did not go to war, yet a generation that will continue to carry these stories — is to show the “nevertheless-ness” of remembrance. The passage of time does not erase the atrocities that occurred, the bodies that were never found, or the spirits burdened with unresolved grief that still lingers over Vietnam. 

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