The Best Travel Writing 2011 - James O'Reilly [110]
My guess is that Jennifer is in her early twenties, idealistic, and never had much exposure to those dark areas of U.S. history that school textbooks don’t deal with very well. She is open to new information and has good intentions, and she was shocked by what she saw here. But I hope she isn’t really 100 percent ashamed to be an American since the United States is more than the My Lai massacre. But even if she were, I think to be around her would be easier than to be with Dottie Payne, who had visited a couple weeks before Jennifer:
I am an American and I remember March 16th well. I fought hard against the Imperialist war my government waged against the heroic Vietnamese people. I pray I will be able to always.
Do not forgive them Lord, for they know what they do. They know.
Dottie and I would agree that U.S. policy has sometimes been poorly, even immorally, made and carried out, contributing to the deaths of millions around the world. But while she felt the liberty to borrow the words of Jesus and alter them, I would not. I imagine that those who killed Jesus were quite aware that they were killing him—they too knew what they were doing. On another level, though, did they? Did they truly know what evil they were committing? Did they ever glimpse enough truth and light to realize just how dark their actions were? Perhaps in one sense they didn’t have a clue what they were doing, and this is why Jesus asked that his killers be forgiven. I will never be an apologist for the crimes committed by U.S. soldiers in My Lai and in other, less famous hamlets around Vietnam, but I cringed at Dottie’s approach for it assumes that there is a great gulf between those who murdered in My Lai and those of us who did not and think we never would. Oppose wrongdoing, yes. Understand the difficulty someone may have in forgiving another, certainly. Ask God himself to deny forgiveness to another, never.
Chung came into the room to refill my cup, and also to play a thirty-minute video about My Lai that included footage of Thompson and Colburn’s return in 1998. They had a chance to meet some of the women they saved, and it was only as I watched Colburn begin to cry as the women grabbed his arms that tears welled up in me as well. And how could they not? I was now sipping tea served by Chung, holding the cup with a hand caressed by the grandson of a survivor; my elbow sat on the guest book, filled with so many entries that expressed arrogant anger and no humility; and on the table behind me were two other papers, certificates belatedly presented by the U.S. military to Thompson and Colburn for heroism in 1996. They left them behind on their 1998 visit to My Lai.
Here I sat, an American in the fields of My Lai, moved by both the past and present, and reminded for the thousandth time that this is a broken world. But I was also moved because the world is home to such beauty, unexpected gifts of grace, and opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to save, to do good, to love, to reach out.
I do not usually leave messages in museum guest books, but now I felt it would be wrong not to. And so I wrote:
There are no clear words. But there is loss, sadness, anger, evil, and pain in this beautiful place. At the same time, today there is peace and hope…and such wonderful people in the towns and villages of this province, as I’m sure there were also in 1968. Thank you for preserving this ground and the memory of those who were murdered. And thank you for your kindness toward me, an American who is in love with Vietnam. Peace to us all, and may we indeed not just have nice sentiments about peace but have the creativity and courage to concretely contribute to right relationships and to justice—to peace. Joel Carillet, Washington D.C., January 18, 2004
I climbed back on my motorbike, ready to explore more of this stunning land.
Joel