American Values/4
April 6 marks another anniversary in the U.S. selective remembrance of the Vietnam War: 35 years ago, at the last minute, the U.S. initiated Operation Babylift, out of Saigon. According to a story today in…
Category: Vietnam
Vietnam’s Wars
Review of Mark Philip Bradley, Vietnam At War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 1. In our history books we refer to “the Vietnam War,” which fixated American attention for a decade, if not more….
An Appreciation of Roy Bourgeois
This was written in 2005 and I am sharing it here for friends who may be headed this weekend to Fort Benning. For some of us, the story of Father Roy Bourgeois is familiar. We…
“Gooks”
Among themselves GIs were able to rationalize their own brutal behavior by dismissing their victims as mere “gooks” or “dinks.” “They were only VC,” they said as a woman was raped or an old man…
The Mere Gook and Haji Rule
Under reviewDeborah Nelson, The War Behind Me: Vietnam Veterans Confront the Truth about U.S. War Crimes—Inside the Army’s Secret Archive of Investigations (New York: Basic Books, 2008) and Chris Hedges and Laila al-Arian, Collateral Damage:…
I Don’t Expect Obama Will Be Quoting This Any Time Soon
“Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose…
On War Heroes, Pilots, and Civilians (American Values/1)
Imagine reaction in the United States to the following scenario: An ambitious, tough-talking Russian politician is vying for greater political power and influence. Twenty years ago, he served his country as a pilot in the…
The Buddha Smiles in Hell
A Reflection on Claude Anshin Thomas, At Hell’s Gate: A Soldier’s Journey from War to Peace. Shambhala Publications, 2004. In one of the most fascinating pieces I’ve read on the U.S. war in Iraq, the litany-esque,…
The Meaning of Vietnam
This year there has been a lot of reflection and retrospection, 40 years after the pivotal 1968, which included the Tet Offensive, assassinations (King and Kennedy), student uprisings, and protest and police violence outside the…
The Power of Example
for Michelle Conley For years in my Social Justice course at Saint Louis University, I assigned the 1993 paperback by Cao Ngoc Phuong entitled, Learning True Love: How I Learned & Practiced Social Change in Vietnam….