Thẻ: Legacy of US-VN War

US actor takes on cudgels on behalf of VN AO victims

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

vietnam news

Update: March, 30/2017 – 06:00

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Doing good: Richard Hughes and a boy who was part of the Shoeshine Boys project in Sài Gòn in the 1970s. Courtesy Photo of Dick Hughes.
Viet Nam News by Phước Bửu

THỪA THIÊN- HUẾ — What started out as a gesture of good will has become Richard Hughes’ passion and destiny as he knocks on doors and crosses oceans in search of justice for Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange.

Richard “Dick” Hughes is an American actor who gained worldwide fame for forming a gang of Sài Gòn street boys during the Việt Nam-US war and living with them.

Wartime Việt Nam first impacted on the consciousness of the Pittsburgh-born actor when he was working at the Theatre Company of Boston, a year after his graduation from Boston University Graduate School of Drama in 1967. Tiếp tục đọc “US actor takes on cudgels on behalf of VN AO victims” →

Today is National Vietnam Veterans Day

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
Wednesday is National Vietnam Veterans Day

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Video: http://abc7news.com/video/embed/?pid=1823962

 

In 2012, President Barack Obama signed a presidential proclamation declaring March 29, 2012 Vietnam Veterans Day, and now each year on March 29 Vietnam vets are honored. (KTRK)

Wednesday, March 29, 2017 06:49AM

In 2012, President Barack Obama signed a presidential proclamation declaring March 29, 2012 Vietnam Veterans Day, and now each year on March 29 Vietnam vets are honored.

March 29 is also the day in 1973 that the final troops returned to the U.S. from Vietnam, marking the end of U.S. involvement in the war.

Click here for more stories about the military.

Echoes of war, seeds of hope

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Harvardgazette

In visit to Vietnam, Faust stresses importance of remembrance in healing from conflict

March 23, 2017 | Editor’s Pick Popular
Drew Faust travels to Asia
By Alvin Powell, Harvard Staff Writer

Even decades after the Vietnam War, the United States and Vietnam are still surveying the conflict’s aftermath, seeking understanding and healing of wounds physical and spiritual, individual and widespread, Harvard President Drew Faust said today during a visit to the Southeast Asian nation. Tiếp tục đọc “Echoes of war, seeds of hope” →

My Lai Massacre Anniversary

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

    TĐH: Below is an article written by Mike Hastie, an American Army medic who started his service in Vietnam in 1970, two years after the Mỹ Lai Massacre happened. Mike has been raising funds to support My Lai Massacre Memorial and the last time he visited My Lai was on April 5-6, 2016. He wrote this article on the occasion of the 49th Anniversary of the Massacre.
    These articles by American veterans about Mỹ Lai have always been some education for me. They are always full of pain, anger, shame and guilt, so full and fresh as if everything has just happened yesterday. And that always amazes me about the American soul.
    We Vietnamese don’t keep things that long. We may talk about an event, but always with a distance between us and it, more like a history lesson than a fresh wound. I teach my Buddhist students non-attachment: “Do not grasp onto anything. All things – good or bad, happy or sad, rewarding or punishing – are simply fleeting clouds sailing through the blue transparent permanent sky which is our Buddha heart.” But these veterans’ letters, always fresh in anguish, show me more than often the depth and the purity in the American heart. Though I would still say: “Don’t grasp onto anything. Let go”.
    This article is about misery but also about healing.  It is a history lesson and a lesson about the human heart.
    After Mike’s article is a comment from our friend Chuck Searcy.

 

My Lai Massacre Anniversary

Today, March 16, 2017, is the 49th anniversary of the My Lai Massacre, located in Quang Ngai Province, Vietnam.

It was Saturday morning, March 16, 1968, when approximately 115 U.S. Army soldiers of the Americal Division’s Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, landed in helicopters just outside the village of My Lai 4. Over the course of the next four hours, these American soldiers, and their Military High Command, who were flying overhead in helicopters observing the massacre, took part in a horror show far beyond the human imagination. They took the term “War Crimes” and added a butcher shop to the equation of morbid extermination. In essence, they became a U.S. version of the final solution. They committed an act of barbarity that would redefine the war in Vietnam. It would take years to decipher what happened that day, as denial is the elixir that protects us from experiencing national shame. It is these two words, ” National Shame,” that continues to hide the truth of what really happened in Southeast Asia. Tiếp tục đọc “My Lai Massacre Anniversary” →

It’s payback time, America

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

e.VnExpress

By Calvin Godfrey   March 13, 2017 | 02:18 pm GMT+7

It's payback time, America

Visitors learn about the Vietnam War at a museum in Ho Chi Minh City in a file photo taken in March 2015. Photo by Minh Le

A diplomatic kerfuffle in Phnom Penh reminds us that the U.S. owes Vietnam $25.7 billion.

Last week, for seemingly no reason whatsoever, an anonymous U.S. State Department official made the strongest argument to date for Donald Trump to make good on wartime reparations promised to Vietnam by his political idol, Richard Nixon.

During Trump’s skinny days, he flew to Houston to attend a birthday party for a bankrupt Texas governor that was attended by the ex-president. Years later, Nixon wrote Trump a letter, urging him to make a play for the White House — a document Trump cherishes even today.

One wonders what Trump might make of another Nixon correspondence, one he penned at the height of his powers, to Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van Dong promising roughly $4.7 billion in wartime reconstruction aid without political conditions.

Tiếp tục đọc “It’s payback time, America” →

Project Renew: Ridding Vietnam of Unexploded Ordnance

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
I was invited by the editors of The VVA Veteran, publication of Vietnam Veterans of America, to submit an article reviewing the history of mine action efforts in Viet Nam, including the role of American veterans and U.S. veterans organizations. Over the past couple of decades of cooperation with our Vietnamese colleagues, and with support from the U.S. government and other international donors and project partners, we are coming very close to the reality of “making Viet Nam safe” from the daily threat of cluster bombs and other ordnance left from the war. CS
The VVA Veteran
January/February 2017
Project RENEW: Ridding Vietnam of Unexploded Ordnance

BY CHUCK SEARCY

For most Americans, the Vietnam War ended in 1975. But for too many Vietnamese, the war didn’t end then. They continued to suffer death, injury, and lifetime disabilities from munitions that remained on the surface or just under the soil. These weapons posed a constant danger to unsuspecting residents throughout the country—but especially along the former demilitarized zone.

Tiếp tục đọc “Project Renew: Ridding Vietnam of Unexploded Ordnance” →

In Vietnam, the Ghost of Agent Orange Still Looms Large

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

50 years after the herbicide was used by the U.S. during the Vietnam War, Agent Orange continues to wreak havoc.

By Lucy Ha
December 21, 2016

thediplomat_Some nights, the illuminated oval-shaped building hovering over a thick row of trees keeps Trinh Bui Kokkoris, 48, restless. Each time she looks out of the window from her apartment in Brooklyn Heights, the sight of the U.S. District Court reminds Trinh of the lawsuit she and her husband lost more than a decade ago with other Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange. Tiếp tục đọc “In Vietnam, the Ghost of Agent Orange Still Looms Large” →

Lawrence Colburn dies; helped end Vietnam’s My Lai massacre

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

I met Larry Colburn in 1998 when he and Hugh Thompson returned to Viet Nam for the first time since the war. They met with victims of the My Lai Massacre, including survivors whose lives they helped to save during those awful hours of March 16, 1968.  They were welcomed and embraced by villagers who shed tears of gratitude for their intervention that day, when they turned the guns of their helicopter against American soldiers to halt the carnage, at least temporarily, and allow life-saving evacuation of some of the victims.  The meeting was emotional.  Larry and Hugh wept as villagers thanked them for their actions that day.

At a time when the term “heroes” is misused and cheapened, Larry and Hugh, and their fellow crew member Glenn Andreotta, were true heroes in the finest sense of the word.  More importantly, they were decent human beings who clearly understood the difference between right and wrong.

Chuck Searcy

MILITARY TIMES

December 16, 2016

Lawrence Colburn dies; helped end Vietnam’s My Lai massacre

By: Chevel Johnson
The Associated Press

Lawrence Manley Colburn, a helicopter gunner in the Vietnam War who helped end the slaughter of hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese villagers by U.S. troops at My Lai, has died. He was 67.

Lisa Colburn, speaking with The Associated Press on Thursday evening, said her husband of 31 years was diagnosed with cancer in late September and died Tuesday. Tiếp tục đọc “Lawrence Colburn dies; helped end Vietnam’s My Lai massacre” →

Mỹ dỡ bỏ hoàn toàn lệnh cấm vận vũ khí đối với Việt Nam

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
Thứ hai, 23/5/2016 | 12:50 GMT+7 VNExpress
Trong cuộc họp báo chung hôm nay, Chủ tịch nước Trần Đại Quang và Tổng thống Barack Obama thông báo việc Mỹ dỡ bỏ hoàn toàn lệnh cấm vận vũ khí đối với Việt Nam.
Chủ tịch nước Trần Đại Quang và Tổng thống Mỹ Barack Obama tại cuộc họp báo. Ảnh: Reuters

Chủ tịch nước Trần Đại Quang và Tổng thống Mỹ Barack Obama tại cuộc họp báo. Ảnh: Giang Huy.

“Quyết định dỡ bỏ lệnh cấm không phụ thuộc vào nhân tố Trung Quốc hay các cân nhắc khác, mà nó dựa trên mong muốn của chúng tôi trong việc hoàn tấtnhững điểm kết nối trong tiến trình bình thường hóa quan hệ với Việt Nam”, ông Obama trả lời câu hỏi tại cuộc họp báo chung với Chủ tịch nước Trần Đại Quang sáng nay.

Tiếp tục đọc “Mỹ dỡ bỏ hoàn toàn lệnh cấm vận vũ khí đối với Việt Nam” →

RENEW Deminer Dies From Injuries After Cluster Bomb Accident

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ 1 bình luận

 

Thursday, 19 May 2016

This is the moment that I have feared for 15 years, since Project RENEW was launched in 2001.

Yesterday Ngo Thien Khiet was killed by a cluster munition at a field site in Quang Tri Province, near the former DMZ.  The 45-year-old deminer, a senior technician with eight years’ experience, was directing his team members in an area where several cluster bombs had been found and marked for destruction.

RENEW’s explosive ordnance disposal specialists and clearance technicians are highly trained, and professional.  Safety is their top priority.  Their efforts have resulted in the destruction of more than 30,000 bombs and other munitions over the years, without a single accident, injury, or death.

Until yesterday.

The RENEW staff, colleagues from Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) and other NGOs, provincial officials and of course friends and family of Khiet are grieving this loss of a dear friend and colleague, a patriot who sacrificed his life in peacetime to dismantle the instruments of death left behind in wartime.

Chuck Searcy

————————–

ngothienkhiet

Ngô Thiện Khiết

Mine Action ALERT

RENEW Deminer Dies From Injuries After Cluster Bomb Accident

19 May 2016

A cluster bomb explosion in Quang Tri Province has killed one deminer and injured another, both technical staff managed by Project RENEW and Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA).  The accident occurred on Wednesday, 18 May, in Co Luy Village of Hai Ba Commune, Hai Lang District.

Tiếp tục đọc “RENEW Deminer Dies From Injuries After Cluster Bomb Accident” →

Healing handshake: Son of US ex-POW meets former warden in Vietnam

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

Talk Vietnam
18 May 2016 

An unusual meeting took place on Monday in the coastal city of Hai Phong in northern Vietnam between the son of a former U.S. prisoner of war (POW) and the Vietnamese prison warden who kept a watch on his father.

1887930-4fxxa3se

Former prison warden Senior Colonel Tran Trong Duyet welcomes Thomas Eugene Wilbur,whose father was a POW at the Hoa Lo Prison (known by Americans as the “Hanoi Hilton”).

The warden in question was Senior Colonel Tran Trong Duyet, who was in charge of Hoa Lo Prison in Hanoi from 1968 to 1973. Tiếp tục đọc “Healing handshake: Son of US ex-POW meets former warden in Vietnam” →

45.000 m3 đất sân bay Đà Nẵng được tẩy sạch dioxin

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
VNExpress

Thứ ba, 3/5/2016 | 23:32 GMT+7
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45.000 m3 đất sân bay Đà Nẵng được tẩy sạch dioxin

Kết quả lấy mẫu xét nghiệm tại sân bay quốc tế Đà Nẵng do cơ quan Phát triển Quốc tế Mỹ (USAID) và Bộ Quốc phòng Việt Nam thực hiện cho thấy đất, bùn đã được tẩy sạch dioxin.

Ngày 3/5, Đại sứ Mỹ tại Việt Nam, ngài Ted Osius và Thứ trưởng Bộ Quốc phòng Việt Nam, Thượng tướng Nguyễn Chí Vịnh đã cùng công bố kết quả xử lý thành công đất nhiễm dioxin tại sân bay Đà Nẵng, trong khuôn khổ dự án được Bộ Quốc phòng Việt Nam và USAID quản lý. Phó Thủ tướng Vũ Đức Đam đã đến dự.

Tiếp tục đọc “45.000 m3 đất sân bay Đà Nẵng được tẩy sạch dioxin” →

U.S. helping defuse Vietnam’s dioxin hot spots blamed on Agent Orange

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

In a photo from 2011, Le Thi Mit feeds her son Lanh, then 26, at their home in Cam Lo , Vietnam. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)
By Daniel Malloy April 8

Cluster bomb is safely destroyed so construction of a new clan temple in Quang Tri Province can continue

~ Trần Đình Hoành ~ Bình luận về bài viết này
Project RENEW

Hai Lang District, Quang Tri Province – 30 October 2015

The O Lau River flows through Hai Lang District in Quang Tri Province.  Along its banks is historic Luong Dien Village, one of the oldest villages in the province. In 1508, people migrating from Tonkin settled in this area and founded a small village named Ke Lang.  Called Luong Phuc in the 18th century, the village was chosen by the Nguyen Lords as the location to be their headquarters and army base for their conquest of the south. Luong Phuc was again renamed as Luong Dien in 1804; two years after Emperor Gia Long – the first king of the Nguyen Dynasty – ascended the throne. Tiếp tục đọc “Cluster bomb is safely destroyed so construction of a new clan temple in Quang Tri Province can continue” →