To view this museum as a “tourist attraction” is “somewhat of an enigma,” says Chris Anderson at CNN. You enter “expecting to see tributes to the Vietnamese Army, only to discover more captured and wrecked American military hardware than Vietnamese,” he writes. The “most impressive” display is the "war meets art" mound of plane debris -- “including a B-52, F-111 and a French transporter stacked high in the centre of the courtyard and surrounded by other intact planes, a helicopter, and artillery.”
It delivers one of the “main military lessons of the 20th century for potential foes of Vietnam,” observes Duncan Forgan at AFAR -- “that the country wouldn't take any invasion lying down … first the French then the Americans and finally the Chinese were out-thought and out-fought by the tenacious Vietnamese.” The “understandable nationalistic pride on display can be seen in every room as various accounts detail the defeat of the invaders,” adds Anderson.