Los amigos se encuentran en lugares y circunstancias muy especiales.
Mi amigo Bernie Duff fue combatiente yanki en Vietnam. Hoy es activista por los niños que padecen los efectos del Gas ORANGE que los propios yankis arrojaron sobre Vietnam. Cada años se hace una Marcha Orange a lo largo de Vietnam. Bernie me envia algunas imagens de la caravana pasada y me invita a participar en la proxima. Aqui va el testimonio para ustedes.
Las fotos de abajo corresponden a ex combatientes americanos, hoy activistas por la paz y el bienestar de los niños vietnamitas que no vivieron la guerra , pero padecen sus efectos.
Vean el altar y las doce tumbas de los doce hijos de ese hombre que se inclina. Sus doce hijos murieron bajo los efectos del Agente Orange.
Gracias Bernie por tus cartas y fotos, estaremos con ustedes una vez mas en la marcha !!
Invito a los Lumumberos que se plieguen a esta marcha. La Paz se predica y se practica.
On April 3, 2009, the Orange Walk 2009 will begin from Nha Trang, Vietnam and start a course that will take the core group some 7200 kilometers (4,400 miles) across all kinds of terrain in Vietnam. We will be riding motorbikes, primarily, over mountains, along the coastline, through valleys in heat and rain and all of the humidity that this country is so well known for. We will park the bikes and walk through the larger cities, such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and Danang, joining countless others who wait for us to arrive even now. One may ask why we would attempt suct a journey. Could it be the thrill of challenging oneself to extreme adversity; is it the thought of untold scenic beauty; is it the fact that most of us are pretty much considered one screw loose or a card short of a full deck? Undoubtedly, all of these thoughts play a part in what makes up our Orange Walk team, but most of all, it is the need and urgency we all feel to help the families we see (and have already seen) who suffer from the effects of Agent Orange.
Last year, our team covered 1,700 kilometers (1,068 miles) of Vietnam's Eastern coastline on foot in what many of us claimed then was the experience of a lifetime. While that experience was an unforgetable one, so too were the memories of pain and suffering...and the joy we saw (and felt) on the faces of those we visited in dark and dank weathered homes. It was as if we were the very first visitors who many had seen in years, or perhaps a lifetime. Joy-real joy! While some may say that there may have been the prospect of receiving a handout, you will never hear one of the members of the Orange Walk team say, or even think that. We saw the looks of happiness.
We saw the smiles that shone from hearts that have felt more pain in a day than most will know in a lifetime. Its one of those times when we say, "You just had to have been there to see and to feel the things that we did!"
This year, we hope that we can bring our experiences to you again as best as photos and narratives can do. We are told that we will be watched closely by newspapers and tv stations from around the globe, but rest assured, we will also be snapping the things that none of those sources would see and telling you stories that have warmed our hearts and dampened our eyes. We will reach out to each one of you who think that life offers you little in the way of hope, as well as those of you who have the opportunity to make the lives of people suffering here better. In short, we hope to allow you each to feel some of the things that will never allow us to sit back in complacency and forget the things we've seen.
This is a human drama unlike any movie you have ever seen. It transends bitter thoughts of a war and who is at fault and who was declared a winner, or loser. It even supersedes what we conceive as a holy icon called a national flag. What we have found is that human flesh and bone will always have more meaning to us than a rectangular piece of cloth with pretty images sewn upon it.
12 tiny shrines at the top of a sandy hill mark the spot where this man's 12 children are buried. All perished as a result of Agent Orange maladies.
We urge each one of you to take from our journey what you are supposed to take from it. Look at the kids we will show you who suffer with their shortened arms and legs, or grossly mishaped heads and see them NOT as poor little Vietnamese kids, but as YOUR children;
look NOT upon teary eyed mothers and fathers (who blame themselves for having lived their lives in sinful ways that brought this punishment onto them and their families) as former enemies, or hateful people who brought these things upon themselves. Instead, look upon them as sisters and brothers who suffer immeasurably in "simply" watching their children suffer in pain every minute of every day.
On April 3rd, we will start our engines and push onward. We hope that each of you will join us and find some way of helping them and us! Take a few minutes and visit our website at:
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**And to those special folks who will be with us, in our hearts and in our minds throughout our Orange Walk 2009, we dedicate this walk to you.
Tom Clarke
Robert Gross
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