Imprinted Agave

Forty years ago today, the last American helicopter left Saigon. Despite the insistence of the military,  American officials,  still hoping for a negotiated settlement waited too long to begin an evacuation of American and Vietnamese personnel. As a result, the final hours  of the American presence in Vietnam were marked by chaos, panic and desperation. Many iconic images of packed boats, people waiting on rooftops for overloaded helicopters and crowded buses are burned into my memory.

 I was against the American participation in the war in Vietnam, and am struck to this day by the fact that we are making the same mistakes all over again in Iraq and Afghanistan. Countless innocent civilians are dying, and we are doing very little to make good on our promises of a new life in America to Afghans working in the embassy and for the military.

When one of our sons went to Vietnam on business ten or fifteen years ago, I realized that he had no memory of the War in Vietnam because he was only a small boy in 1975. There must be an equal number of Vietnamese who have no memories of the war that destroyed their country. I have been listening to the stores of a number of people who were small children when they were evacuated. Their stories come mainly from  the memories and experiences of their parents and family members who sacrificed everything to get them out of the country.  

Perhaps, like the imprints on the agave I'm publishing today, there is a collective memory imprinted in each of us…by our families as well as our own experiences… memories that might prevent us from constantly making the same mistakes if only we shared them, not only with our own families but with those on the "other side".