47 years ago today, my mom told herself that she’d leave her home country for two weeks, tops. As it turns out, that day marked the end of 29 years of destruction in Viet Nam bankrolled by the American taxpayer, meted first by French teenagers then by American teenagers using bullets, land mines, fire, terror, torture, and barrels of carcinogenic Agent Orange that killed forests, crops, and crippled and killed both Vietnamese and American children in utero. The teenagers, many of whom never left Viet Nam, either mentally or physically, were just following the orders of the psychopaths in the US government who didn’t care about the actual effects of their brutality. Many of those psychopaths, like Henry Kissinger and JFK, are today hailed as respectable people. Heroes, even. People dislike Nixon more for Watergate than for his wanton cruelty in Viet Nam.

Wars never end for those who smelled it and tasted it. You assimilate the war and pass it on to your children one way or another.

These are the things we must Never Forget. If we are serious about collective peace on Earth, we must have the courage to stare our collective brutality in the face, own its effects, and transform it.

What do you remember about the wars in Vietnam and how it affected your life?