Code Pink Buffalo!

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I recently saw on the news that President Bush has commented that pulling out of Vietnam harmed millions of innocent civilians. He brings this up to show that a similar fate could fall to Iraqis, if we end our country’s occupation there too soon.

 

Since President Bush has never spent an extended amount of time in modern day Vietnam, I fail to see how he can so accurately comment on the lives of these innocent civilians. Considering I had the opportunity to spend three months in Vietnam in the summer of 2002 through an overseas study abroad program, I thought I might be able to share my experiences there and offer some insight on the lasting damage done to that country as a result of the war.

 

 I knew very little about the city of Danang, Vietnam when we landed at the small airport. The Quonset huts used by US troops in the war and some preliminary reading helped me to quickly learn that this was where heavy fighting occurred during the war. I didn’t go there expecting to see how a history of endless wars had harmed the country, but saw many things that showed this reality to me.

 

This human toll was apparent on a visit to a family’s house in the rural province of Quang Nam, where we made visits to families who had children with birth defects due to a parent’s exposure to Agent Orange. Upon visiting the family’s house, my fellow students and I were greeted with warm smiles. Children from around the neighborhood gathered to see Americans. We then greeted the family’s 10 year old boy, who lay on a mat on the floor, because all of the joints in his body were rigid and he could not bend at his waist. Although he was unable to speak, his face lit up with a smile that could not even be dampened by his family’s life of subsistence farming or his lack of medical care that might have given him more freedom. Although his disability was caused by a chemical our country used in the war, the family receives no compensation or even sympathy from our government.

 

We visited several families like this during the course of our time there, being received as honored guests by the whole community. They did not ask us for money, they did not ask us to publicize their cause, they only thanked us for coming and showing our care for them. These were some of the innocent civilians harmed by the war.

 

Later in our program, we were invited to meet with several, “Vietnamese Heroic Mothers,” who were women who had lost nearly their entire families during the course of the war. They told us stories of losing sons and daughter, allowing us to take pictures of the shrines of their children, hoping to keep their memories alive. While one mother was speaking about her lost son, I started crying. She looked touched, then took my hand and gave me a look of compassion similar to one my own mother would have given me had she seen me upset. Although I had learned about the Vietnam War in school, I had never been asked to consider the human cost of war. When considering these costs—whether in Vietnam or Iraq—I not only think of our losses in this country, I also remember this mother, the families we visited, and the damage that remains. This damage which was caused not by our forces leaving too soon, but by our harmful involvement in a protracted war.

The power of words...

My View, November 15th 2007.

The Buffalo News

Alison Schweichler