It is probably dangerous for self-preservation to philosophize too much while in a war, but every once-in-a-while, through the fog of my fatigue the question arose: What are we doing here?
Poisoned Jungle book launch (September 12)
Many thanks to those who attended the Edmonton book launch of Poisoned Jungle on September 12. Thirty-five arrived despite a cool and overcast day. The rain that fell lightly earlier in the morning lifted and allowed the event to proceed. Held outside due to Covid-19 considerations where social distancing could be followed, the crowd fit nicely into the yard of Kimberley and Henry Howard. A special thanks to them for hosting the event.
A shared experience
Both friends also wrote about the war. In Gene’s case, I have an unpublished manuscript that I find brilliant. Broader in scope than the Vietnam War, through a series of thematically related short stories, he connects the diversity of the lives in his pieces to the broader consequences of war. Interspersed with biographical details of his own life, a broad number of voices, diverse on the surface, flow together as a woven tapestry.
When Leadership Fails
Many codes were broken in the war, lies spoken, cover-ups pursued. The degree to which that occurred set a bad precedent for governance in the United States. So many lives were lost because of a failure of leadership at so many levels. In my view, the United States has not healed from the divisions created during the war, domestically and internationally.
Civilian war casualties
The five-year-old boy in the photograph is Tran Van Hay. I did not know his name until a friend still in Vietnam sent me the newspaper clipping after I’d returned from the war. When I first saw Tran, his abdomen was ripped open and his intestines were exposed and dangling outside of his abdominal cavity. I didn’t think he would live.