Vietnamese refugees know what Afghan arrivals face in United States
PHILADELPHIA — Vicky Ung wept as she watched Afghanistan fall.
Not because it was her homeland. She cried because, having fled a collapsing South Vietnam nearly 50 years ago, she knew exactly what the Afghan people felt. Shock at the enemy’s rapid advance. Disbelief that their government was crumbling. Terror of being left behind.
And for those who managed to get out, a disorientating flight into the unknown and tilting arrival in a new land where everything is different.
Does Afghanistan constitute another Vietnam for the United States? Is Kabul the same as Saigon? Was last month’s U.S. military airlift the modern replay of a desperate, decades-old evacuation?
Let the politicians argue, said Ung, a retired 70-year-old dress designer who lives in Chadds Ford.
She only knows that as the communists pressed into Saigon in late April 1975, she was 23, with a 4-year-old daughter, and they escaped aboard one of the last planes out of the country.
If she could reach out and hug the people of Afghanistan, she would do it. For now, as evacuated Afghans land at Philadelphia International Airport, she wants to do all she can to help.
Ung is collecting clothes and toys to donate, clearing bedrooms in her house to offer an Afghan family a place to stay, and talking to other Vietnamese about launching a formal assistance effort.
“I understand,” Ung said, “that war has
than 100 pounds was recyclable material.
Volunteers throughout the county pick up more than 29,000 pounds of trash.
Grant said she think the amount of trash cleaned up in Lodi has decreased over the years, thanks to the increase of volunteers and the frequency in which debris is collected.
“I think the amount of trash we have collected gets smaller each year, when you consider size and weight,” she said. “But then you count cigarette buttes. Fortunately, a lot of people are taking it upon themselves to do their own cleanups throughout the year, and that takes a lot of workload off the city so we can focus on other jobs.”
A waiver of liability release form will be required from every participant on Sept. 18, and a parent or legal guardian must sign for volunteers younger than 18, then submit them to their participating group’s teacher or leader. No work may be performed without a completed form.
Contact Grant at kgrant@lodi.gov to receive a liability form, or volunteers can pick them up on Sept. 18 at the Discovery Center at the front of Lodi Lake. If the volunteer is younger than 18, a parent or legal guardian must be present to sign the form.
Volunteers should wear work clothes, closed-toed shoes, gloves, sunscreen, and hats, and they are encouraged to bring their own water, buckets, gloves and trash-grabbers. There will be a limited amount of gloves, bags, and grabbers provided by event sponsors.
For more information, visit www.sjwa ter.org/Stormwater-Management/Califor nia-Coastal-Cleanup.