Notes From the Editor
by Larry Kerschner
As some of you may know I was privileged to spend the month of September 2011 in Afghanistan with the Clean Water Delegation. I was also able to spend most of this last June in Viet Nam, returning for the first time in 42 years. I am including the last entry in my diary for the Viet Nam trip: Complete diary entries of both trips at: (Afghanistan) www.globaldaysoflistening.com/pages/CleanWaterProjectDiary and (Viet Nam) www.livejournal.com/~larrywrites
I highly recommend an excellent source about what has happened in Viet Nam since the U.S. pulled out in 1975 titled Vietnam: Dragon Rising by Bill Hayton, published by Yale Press.
June 23, 2012
(Viet Nam Trip Day 15) When I think of all the places I have been and seen first hand the results of American imperialism I keep seeing how we treat the children. It is almost as though we have told the world “do what we say or we will kill your children.” I think of the dying children we saw in Iraq who had been exposed to our depleted uranium weapons. Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State at the time, said that the price of killing 500,000 Iraqi children was a price we were willing to pay to achieve our goals. I saw many children in Afghanistan who are living in a failed state with no hope for the future because we invaded and occupied their country without a social conscience. Here, I see the curse of our war reaching even into the third generation to kill, maim and disfigure children. How can we as a country say that, in any way, it could ever be worth this price?
In the morning we visited the War Remnants Museum which shows what is called remnant proofs of War Crimes and their consequences. There are eight different theme rooms covering various aspects of the American War. We then had lunch with Mr. Son and his daughter. He is a veteran of VC and NVA whose main job was providing entertainment for the troops. He is a great singer and entertainer. His joy of life was a good counterpoint to the somberness of the War Remnants Museum. We learned that today is Tet Daon Ngo which is the annual day set aside to rid yourself of intestinal pests. Starting at noon you are to eat a special diet which is mostly fruit and some special herbal medicine which will cause the expulsion of the pests. We had a lovely dinner at Ahn’s mother’s house prepared by his wife. After that we had a few silly hours with beer and song at a Karaoke place owned by Anh’s sister. Next stop home.