Vietnam vets aid nation they attacked
In the United States, we’ve mostly moved on from our military engagements in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s the American way — not dwelling on our mistakes or engaging in a national discussion about what went wrong. And atonement? We don’t do that.
But two American Vietnam vets thought differently and became our national conscience, our moral center and our agents of redemption in dealing with the fearsome toll that herbicide spraying and unexploded bombs inflicted on tens of thousands of Vietnamese.
Manus Campbell, a Marine from New Jersey, and Chuck Searcy, an
Army intelligence analyst from Georgia, have spent the past few decades in Vietnam leading efforts to heal the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese still suffering from war wounds or diseases linked to herbicide exposure.
Thanks to Campbell, Searcy and a small group of scientists and others, the U.S. and others are providing the resources to help find unexploded bombs and treat Vietnamese struggling with diseases likely linked to herbicide exposure.
George Black’s reporting for “The Long Reckoning: A Story of War, Peace and Redemption in Vietnam” is deep and wide — he made nine trips to Vietnam. The result is a meticulously reported, extraordinary account of efforts, mostly Searcy and Campbell’s, to bring medical care in an area most severely affected by herbicides the U.S. military used in Vietnam in an effort to expose the roads and trails the North Vietnamese used to move weapons and supplies.
After the Vietnam War ended, Vietnamese people confronted a nation in ruins. Millions had been killed or wounded, cities and towns were wrecked, and hundreds of square miles had been defoliated by herbicide spray that polluted water supplies and likely caused severe and lingering health problems.
This book, however, offers an inspiring epilogue to the Vietnam tragedy. “I thought we had a moral obligation to help,” said Searcy. “I wanted to participate in the rebuilding.”
Searcy says he has been overwhelmed by the graciousness of the Vietnamese, and particularly former combatants, which has given him a revelation on America today.
“If the veterans can come together and make peace, why can’t we all?” — Jeff Rowe, Associated Press
At Yale University, professors
Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun and Ryan McAnnally-Linz offer an undergraduate class that teaches students to look for the essence of who we are, our personal truth.
In the course, and their book “Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most,” the authors draw on a diverse cast: Jesus, Socrates, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the Dalai Lama, Ida B. Wells, Friedrich Nietzsche and others.
The authors also collect wisdom from major religions and assemble a guide to figuring out life’s overarching questions, such as what is worth wanting in life, responding to failure and how much happiness matters.
The three say the search for meaning extends beyond a personal quest to bigger inquiries such as who we are as humans and nations. Will we all be better off having deeply thought through what matters in this life, who we are and what our purpose is in the greater scheme of things? McAnnallyLinz says the book is “a toolkit for thinking well about life’s most important questions.”
Throughout the book, “the Question” is never precisely defined but meant to ignite discussions about topics such as worth, value, good and evil, meaning, purpose, beauty, truth, justice, what we owe one another, what the world is, who we are and how we live.
That’s kindling for quite a few engaging conversations. This is the fourth book by Maria Shriver’s Open Field Imprint, which aspires to publish books that inspire and “make us feel hopeful.” — Jeff Rowe