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something special was happening |
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"We hoped that the children might be aware that something truly special was happening" John Ward, former VVRP president, is now living in Viêt Nam where he works with NGOs and the Vietnamese. We are pleased to share portions of a letter we received from him this past January. Holiday Greetings, [My] new work has me traveling into rural areas of Quang Nam Province to assess damage to schools from the early November floods. I travel with a young Vietnamese man who is bilingual and also works for EMW. We spend long, demanding days together, often wet and tired. We travel on the same motorbike, sleep in the same room, eat every meal with one another, and attend every required social function together. I am tied to him because of my inability to speak Vietnamese. He is tolerant, smart, sociable, and quite likable. We're becoming good friends. I'm lucky to have him as my colleague and companion… Translation is hard work, mentally demanding. I can sense the difficulty and stress of his job. I make as few demands as necessary. Part of our routine is to socialize with local officials. As such, I often find myself sitting among a group of men eating, drinking, talking, and laughing. Unable to participate without Tung's translation I spend a lot of time smiling and pretend to follow the gist of things. But really, I can't… In Viêt Nam everyone and everything 'belongs' to someone or something. I belong to People's Aid Coordinating Committee (PACCOM) which belongs to the National government. I believe that in many ways the culture here is much more complex than my own. All the pronouns describe a relationship of one to another and thus, a carefully ordered system of status and respect…
VVRP Team XIV arrived here the second week of December. The team consisted of four veterans. We were cooperating with the Quang Tri Department of Labour, War Invalids, and Social Affairs to fund and initiate construction of new brick and mortar homes for five disabled Vietnamese veterans. Although the weather prevented us from doing much in the way of work, we did participate in speeches and ground-breaking ceremonies. A luncheon party in the vet's current home usually followed. Their homes were typically a structure with woven split-bamboo walls, grass thatched roofs, and dirt floors. Open-fire kitchens, hand-dug wells, pigs, chickens, water buffalo, and vegetable gardens were a natural aspect of the immediate landscape. We were offered food, drink, and friendship. Officials from the province and district levels of the Dept. of Labour, commune and village leaders, and representatives from the local Veterans Association participated in the festivities. Usually a crowd of neighbors clustered around to observe the occasion.
Always joyful events, they were often accompanied by powerful emotions heretofore unknown to any of us. One Vietnamese veteran was so overcome with emotion that he was unable to complete a short speech. Another, representing the village veterans association, told us how surprised he was by our willingness to help carry the granite foundation stones in the mud and rain and how thoroughly he enjoyed meeting and talking to us. He had been a 'sapper' during the war. I think some old misunderstandings, on both sides, were shattered that day. In light of their suffering and losses-the compassion, kindness, and hospitality bestowed on us were overwhelming and quite humbling. We hoped that the children watching might be aware that something truly special was happening and that they might carry it forward with them into the future…
Quang Tri is one of the smallest and probably the poorest of Viêt Nam's provinces. The soil is not sufficiently fertile for good crop production, the weather creates frequent disasters (droughts and floods), and the affects of war and a 20-year embargo have left a legacy of hardship. The recent November flooding destroyed roads, dikes, homes, public buildings, and hundreds of acres of rice paddy. Dozens of lives were lost and perhaps thousands of farm animals.
[Team XIV member Wil Schaefer, who was also a member of Team XII, reports that one of the houses built by Team XII helped save the lives of 30 people. The Vietnamese veteran and his family, who were given the house, lived in its rafters for three days during the height of the flooding with 25 members of their commune. The house was one of the few in the commune able to withstand the force of the floodwaters. The veteran's son saved nine people from drowning and received a commendation from the government.]
Still in evidence, scattered about former American military sites, are live, leftover munitions--lethal reminders of the tragic past… Now, a Canadian research group (Hatfield Consultants, Ltd.) is discovering that significant levels of contaminants can still be detected in the local flora and fauna. Their research is independently and indirectly lending credibility to the Vietnamese claim that the high number of birth defects in this area is related to exposure to Agent Orange. Our Veterans Administration acknowledges a correlation between wartime exposure to the chemical and 7 different cancers. One can easily imagine that on-going, long-term exposure may have even graver ramifications.
From Dong Ha, Viêt Nam-wishing all of you-Chuc Mung Nam Moi-Happy New Year!
John Ward
CNN International Program on Agent Orange in Viêt Nam, Wednesday, December 22, 1999
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