ForeWord/Clarion Book Review by Holly Chase Williams
January 30, 2011
Why a Novel?
December 16, 2009
My pre-law major encouraged spinning a good argument, backed by well researched facts. Delivering the message with persuasive language was all important. Had I studied law beyond sociology and political science, such tools would have served well. Instead, I chose to round out my education in the humanities and psychology, opening my senses to the motives that drive human beings—rather than their surface dialogue…
Approaching my senior year in earned credits, I volunteered for the University Year for Action program and found myself assigned to the Oregon State Employment Office at Springfield, dealing with youth employment issues. The head of the UYA program was Professor Runyan. Professor Runyan oversaw our job placements and headed weekly group and individual meetings to discuss students’ community assignments. Professor Runyan’s background was Psychology, which she ably applied to her tasks.
My bent being Sociology, I spent a good amount of time analyzing the processes of the Oregon State Employment Office, the effectiveness, or ineffectiveness, of service delivery plus the broader issues of unemployment concerns, job seeking and employer expectations. For the curriculum portion of the UYA program, I wrote detailed assessments and shared success numbers and statistics related to Lane County’s youth employment. My work included job and training placements, and the program had a fair amount of applicant successes in each area.
Over time, the bureaucratic shortcomings of the employment agency became obvious. Individual state departments of employment adhere to the oldest Federal mandates—and bureaucracy—the U.S. Department of Labor. Stacks of legalese-laden tomes lined the office shelves, a light year’s distance from the lines of unemployed, frustrated and fearful clients.
On one week’s debriefing, Professor Runyan asked in earnest about the problems and issues surrounding my assignment. My response was full of details, analytical pearls about the shortfalls of the process, a convincing description of how the office personnel categorized and systematically dealt with the unemployed clients as if they were numbers, the chilling distance between the hardships of unemployment and the clearly delineated—and markedly limited—services offered.
Professor Runyan listened patiently and supportively acknowledged my eloquent presentation. Apparently, I was on path to another “A” in my UYA course curriculum, an impressive block of 400-level Psychology credits!
Professor Runyan’s academic focus was Adlerian psychology, and she had only one remaining question. “So what are you going to do about that?” she queried.
Although the curriculum was Psychology, couched in Western cultural language and philosophy, the question struck like a Zen koan. I thought the debrief was about facts, viewpoints and an airing of issues. Though Professor Runyan had genuine interest in the services we rendered to the community, she also wanted to know each student’s personal relationship to the process. Where Sociology studies people within groups and cultures, Professor Runyan’s question came from a much deeper level, leaving me, well, tongue-tied. Was I tilting windmills and venting, or were there substantive things that could be accomplished in that placement?
In my life, epiphanies have come in bits and pieces. Few have rung my bell. That simple question, tangentially targeted to my gut instead of my head, illuminated the difference between Sociology and Psychology. In the last year of studies leading to my degree, UYA provided more than community service. We learned to identify human need at the visceral level.
I chose not to pursue law but, instead, writing. Though my goal was fiction, I found technical writing and publishing readily accessible, capitalizing on topics that related to my mechanical, pre-collegiate skills. From the early 1980s through the mid-‘90s, I found ready outlets for my journalism, non-fiction writing and photographic illustration work, all the while waiting for the “right time” to write my first novel.
For many of those years, like other writers, I found a host of reasons for postponing my original goal. Eventually, I discovered why. Had I written a “Vietnam novel” fresh out of college, I would have been academic in my approach. Interim years of marriage and parenting, striving for mobility and supporting the tax system were a useful reality check. Somewhere in that process, I studied Taoism, schools of Buddhism and Asian history…Only then did Indra’s Net emerge—and when it did, the draft and first edit pass of a 186,000-word novel took a mere seven months to complete. That interval included forty minutes of meditation practice each day…
***********************************************************
Indra’s Net
While Indra’s Net speaks to WWII and the Vietnam experience, it also speaks to the larger issue of war. War is once again the central theme of American foreign policy, and my blog welcomes earnest viewpoints and founded facts that illuminate the impact of contemporary wars and ways nations can ameliorate political and cultural differences—and defeat terrorism—short of wide-scale military conflict…Take in the novel. It’s up for discussion.—Moses Ludel
“…this ambitious novel spreads its net across the marches of history, reeling in gold nuggets of intriguing fictional action…One of the best things about this novel is the author’s firm grasp of history, especially as experienced from the viewpoint character Dinh…the comprehensive novel reads like a history book without the boring bits…An engaging, satisfying, and richly lengthy read.”—****Holly Chase Williams, ForeWord CLARION Reviews.
Featured at the New York and Los Angeles BookExpo, Beijing and Frankfurt Book Fairs…Available through all major book outlets and independent bookstores in soft cover edition and Amazon Kindle book.
“Indra’s Net”—What’s in a Name?
December 15, 2009
I completed the rough draft of Indra’s Net seven years after the Gulf War. President Clinton had lifted economic sanctions against Vietnam, starting a long process to normalize trade and diplomatic relations. At the time, Vietnam remained America’s enigmatic foreign military venture. Despite the collapse of Soviet Russia and its Eastern European sphere of influence, despite the spooling up of global marketing and business compacts between the United States and Communist China, closure on the Vietnam War eluded the American people…
As a student at the University of Oregon in the late ’70s, I learned the value of a huge research library with a government documents section. Stacks of details on America’s Cold War foreign policies later served as threads for Indra’s Net. Supplementing my major in Sociology with equivalent minors in Psychology and Political Science, I plunged headlong into a range of writings that included British empiricist/philosopher John Locke. Apparent was Locke’s profound influence upon Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and other Founding Fathers.
A clearer sense for America’s Twentieth Century emerged. The corporate society and a postwar descent into McCarthyism provided the ideological stage for the Vietnam War. Largely subverted were Paine’s Age of Reason and Jefferson’s vision of individualism, civil liberty and a pluralistic democracy. Following WWII, America stood unscathed in its industrial capacity, ascending as a world power with unparalleled military supremacy. That history became the impetus for writing my novel.
Like most Americans, graduating college led to family needs and responsibilities, years of earning a livelihood. Having honed my writing skills at the University of Oregon, I found my way into magazine journalism and technical writing, placing the “Vietnam novel” project on a back burner. In the early 1990s, having authored several successful non-fiction books and more than 2,000 magazine features, I continued research on the history and cultures of Southeast Asia. Studying Buddhist philosophy and psychology led to Vipassana meditation practice, and by the mid-1990s, autodidactic research included Vietnamese history, Zen/Chan and Taoist teachings plus a daily meditation practice.
The central theme of Indra’s Net is people, not corporate or political agendas. The Vietnam War, known today as the American War by the Vietnamese, unfolded within the histories of two peoples. These nations had common ground, a brief alliance toward the end of the Second World War that could well have continued. Instead, relations between the United States and Viet Nam deteriorated over the next decade and eventually led to the Vietnam—or American—War.
Although the novel Indra’s Net plays against a background of politics, corporate agendas, military interests and nationalism, the real players are people—and people mean relationships. The term “Indra’s net” originates in an Eighth Century Buddhist cosmological precept, the description of a Universe that includes sentient beings.
Symbolically, the vortices of Indra’s net each hold a faceted jewel that reflects all other jewels in the infinite net. In modern physics, our closest analogy would be a hologram, although this has more to do with images than essences. In Indra’s net, we see the interconnectedness of all things material, sentient beings and essences. (See this Oxford dictionary discussion of “Fa-Tsang’s image of Indra’s net, which spreads across the universe, with a perfect jewel in each of its links: each jewel reflects every other jewel in the whole net”…http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Hua-yen_Buddhism.aspx#1O101-Huayen.)
Similarly, the storyline of Indra’s Net unfolds against a landscape of historical events. The relationship between an American family and its Vietnamese counterpart become inextricably connected by history’s flow. A human play of circumstances, conditions of struggle, courage, family, loss and, ultimately, reconciliation, binds their lives.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnam’s best known Zen monk and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, speaks of “inter-being,” affirmed through meditation practice and the letting go of attachment. In much that way, I went about writing Indra’s Net. I invite readers to experience the jeweled net from the vantage of co-arising interdependence…Enjoy the novel!
***********************************************************
Indra’s Net
While Indra’s Net speaks to WWII and the Vietnam experience, it also speaks to the larger issue of war. War is once again the central theme of American foreign policy, and my blog welcomes earnest viewpoints and founded facts that illuminate the impact of contemporary wars and ways nations can ameliorate political and cultural differences—and defeat terrorism—short of wide-scale military conflict…Take in the novel. It’s up for discussion.—Moses Ludel
“…this ambitious novel spreads its net across the marches of history, reeling in gold nuggets of intriguing fictional action…One of the best things about this novel is the author’s firm grasp of history, especially as experienced from the viewpoint character Dinh…the comprehensive novel reads like a history book without the boring bits…An engaging, satisfying, and richly lengthy read.”—****Holly Chase Williams, ForeWord CLARION Reviews.
Featured at the New York and Los Angeles BookExpo, Beijing and Frankfurt Book Fairs…Available through all major book outlets and independent bookstores in soft cover edition and Amazon Kindle book.
President Obama: What Change?
December 4, 2009
Barack Obama swept into the presidency of the United States on a ticket for change. As his first year in office ends, despite the pledges to campaign supporters, President Obama’s record speaks for itself. Stripped of articulate rhetoric, glowing forecasts and lofty visions, President Obama has served, most clearly, the interests of Wall Street and big business. He has inflated the military budget with plans to expand aggression abroad, perpetuating the prosperity of the U.S. military-industrial complex. His approach has been anything but change, matching the actions of nine out of eleven U.S. presidents since the Second World War.
The President’s pledge to health care reform, which could easily have been legitimized by expanding Medicare and making it accessible to all American citizens, deteriorated into compromise and partisan bickering. Instead of promoting true national health insurance (a single-payer, federally based system), President Obama entered the debate in retreat, bent on preserving profit-based insurance companies. The public insurance option is simply an equivalent player, offering small relief in consumers’ medical costs.
In foreign policy, Barack Obama shows no distinction from his predecessor. The United States, now escalating a war at Afghanistan on the pretext of chasing al Qaeda, continues to promote war in the Middle East and Central Asia. President Obama’s National Security Advisor estimates that 100 members of al Qaeda are at large in Afghanistan, none in a position to directly threaten the United States or its allies. Despite these observations, President Obama has chosen the expanded war option, using the al Qaeda argument in much the same way Bush/Cheney manipulated WMDs and fear mongering as the excuse for a preemptive strike on Iraq.
Escalating a war to end terrorism and Taliban insurgency is counterintuitive. The Taliban has free access to Pakistan, a nuclear armed country strained by its own political and economic instability. If the United States proceeds militarily at Afghanistan, objectives can only be met with an expansion of the war into Pakistan. To reduce troop exposure, the U.S. contemplates the high-tech penetration of Pakistan with pilotless drones, a tactic guaranteed to produce substantial collateral mayhem. Such action would alienate the Pakistani people and unleash a broader based, anti-American movement within that country. In any scenario, the Afghani and Pakistani people will suffer hardship and loss of lives. Despite the technological superiority and overwhelmingly high kill ratios of “enemy insurgents” to American troops, the United States will have significant casualties, too.
So, President Obama, where’s the change? Without jobs, losing homes at alarming rates, the majority of American people have no more now than under the Bush TARP agenda. Wall Street is up to speed, apparently the real objective. The foxes—Geithner and Bernanke—have been minding the henhouse—Wall Street. Main Street, Obama’s trumpeted beneficiary of his election success, fares as poorly today as it did during the Obama inaugural celebration.
During his campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama made a variety of forecasts and continually shared his “visions.” A swing in the independent vote signaled a clear mandate for his proposals. Green energy technology, a renewed automotive industry with a focus on reducing the carbon footprint, entrepreneurs coming out of the American grassroots fabric to develop green industries—all of this sounded appealing.
At present, China and the United States create 40% of the world’s greenhouse emissions. The only “change” in sight is a U.S./Obama Administration commitment to reduce emissions by a mere 17% over the next decade. European industrial nations are aghast at the lack of American environmental commitment in measureable terms. Representative of President Obama’s lack of commitment is his ongoing support of so-called “clean coal.” Mountaintop removal coal mining threatens the quality of life at Appalachia and raises environmental havoc throughout the region.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s constituency at my home state of Nevada faces the highest house foreclosure rate and skyrocketing unemployment. 65% of Nevada’s homes are candidates for either foreclosure or years of being “under water” (equity or principal worth less than the current loan balance). While Senator Reid has been outspoken about health care reform and the public option, he faces a reelection dilemma in 2010 if independents swing with Republicans as a response to Nevada’s economic crisis.
If Senator Reid fails to turn the state’s economy around significantly, many of his constituents and supporters could defect to the Republican side. For the President, the loss would be the end of a Democratic majority in the Senate as well as its Democratic majority leader. Nevada would have three conservative members in Congress, each likely opposed to the President’s proposals.
Given the economic climate across the country, and the likelihood that 2010 could prove equally disappointing in terms of Main Street’s recovery, President Obama may well find himself facing a Republican majority in Congress by January 2011. If so, contrary to James Carville’s gloating post-election predictions of a forty-year Democratic Party reign, President Obama may languish as a lame duck for the last two years of his administration. Reelection in 2012 would be highly unlikely unless the Republican presidential candidate is grossly flawed.
Like the majority of American voters, I placed my bet on Barack Obama. I wanted him to win and move forward with progressive change. When he concentrated on Wall Street’s needs and generated a half-hearted stimulus package that even a Reagan Republican could support, I raised an eyebrow. When President Obama reduced the prospect of Medicare for everyone into a public option health insurance program that would force all Americans into the hands of insurance companies—either private or public—that raised my other eyebrow. And when a foreign policy of idealized rhetoric and glad-handing diplomacy, apparently enough to win a Nobel Prize, revealed its true nature in the support of an overseas offensive under the name of homeland security, I finally got the message: President Obama’s change is, in direct contradiction to his campaign pledges, more of the same and support for the status quo.
***********************************************************
Indra’s Net
While Indra’s Net speaks to WWII and the Vietnam experience, it also speaks to the larger issue of war. War is once again the central theme of American foreign policy, and my blog welcomes earnest viewpoints and founded facts that illuminate the impact of contemporary wars and ways nations can ameliorate political and cultural differences—and defeat terrorism—short of wide-scale military conflict…Take in the novel. It’s up for discussion.—Moses Ludel
“…this ambitious novel spreads its net across the marches of history, reeling in gold nuggets of intriguing fictional action…One of the best things about this novel is the author’s firm grasp of history, especially as experienced from the viewpoint character Dinh…the comprehensive novel reads like a history book without the boring bits…An engaging, satisfying, and richly lengthy read.”—****Holly Chase Williams, ForeWord CLARION Reviews.
Featured at the New York and Los Angeles BookExpo, Beijing and Frankfurt Book Fairs…Available through all major book outlets and independent bookstores in soft cover edition and Amazon Kindle book.
Hearts and Minds: Winning at Vietnam and Afghanistan
November 21, 2009
The November 16, 2009 Newsweek cover blurb reads, “How We [Could Have] Won in Vietnam.” The issue includes Jon Meacham’s opening editorial titled, “Rethinking the Lessons of Vietnam.” In that assessment, Editor Meacham struggles with the same “what if” postulates that his contributors, Evan Thomas and John Barry, find entangling in their article, “The Surprising Lessons of Vietnam, Anatomy of a Quagmire”…
Thirty-four years after that war’s end, the American view of Vietnam remains narrowly chauvinistic. From this vantage, the U.S. has emerged the “victim,” with 58,000 dead as proof. (In fact, “kill ratios” at Southeast Asia were at least 50:1 in favor of U.S. forces over adversaries.) The U.S. debate remains firm. Hawks still argue that U.S. troops were not allowed to fight the war aggressively enough—despite the fact that millions of U.S. troops deployed and countless aircraft were active in that theater, using the most sophisticated technology in military history against a Third World adversary.
Others argue that pacification of South Vietnam’s civilian populace did not run its course, nor did the U.S. clandestine effort to assassinate the opposition’s leaders. Add the final cryptic, that the American public lacked resolve, referring to a society that had judged the war on the nightly news for more than a decade, growing numb and ever more skeptical. Dismissively accounting for the Vietnamese people, hawks still describe the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces as blind followers of a manipulative communist leadership at Hanoi.
The U.S. released four times more tonnage of bombs over Vietnam than the total tonnage dropped by all belligerents in World War II. U.S. forces maimed and liquidated an estimated 1.5-million enemy soldiers, plus a million or more bystander civilians, through the systematic bombardment of jungles, rice paddies and irrigation levees—plus the cities of Hanoi and Haiphong. American leadership at the time, including both the Johnson and Nixon Administrations, assumed that people lose their will to fight after suffering such losses, yet the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese continued with resolve.
As for blindly following orders from Hanoi, the NVA soldiers, doctors, nurses, trail building crews and transport truck and bicycle operators sent down the Ho Chi Minh Trail into South Vietnam often broke into platoons and smaller groups. Personnel were scattered over several hundred miles of malaria-infested jungle, strafed continuously each day by American fighter jets and fixed wing gunships, and bombed continually by American B-52s flying out of bases at Thailand and the Philippines. Ponder the degree of commitment and morale needed to persist under such conditions, all to access a life-threatening battlefront and engage the U.S. and South Vietnamese armed forces.
The official U.S. position on the Vietnam War remains skewed. The original pretext of engagement at Southeast Asia was the “domino theory,” which asserted that all communist aspirants were the same. Within that view, U.S. foreign policy backed a variety of corrupt yet ”anti-communist” leaders who typically lacked a base among the populace. Under such conditions at South Vietnam, U.S. pacification programs deteriorated into burning hamlets, defoliating jungles with Agent Orange and assassinating local leaders who supported the Viet Cong or Hanoi. The death toll and environmental damage escalated as the U.S. fought on with ineffective support from the nationals within South Vietnam…Similar methodologies can be seen in the current strategies at Iraq and Afghanistan—without deliberate, ongoing military force, the American “victories” have limited popular support and dissolve in the wake of U.S. troop withdrawals.
Rather than Newsweek’s politico view, which reflects a host of American cultural assumptions, it would be wise to consider Vietnam from a Vietnamese viewpoint. A nation fighting for independence or liberation from colonial oppression or occupation can readily rally a popular base—with resolve. America did so in its war for independence against the British Empire. No amount of force or coercion shifts such a people. For Vietnam, the original oppressor was France, ousted in the first Indochina War. American intervention began less than five years later.
During the Vietnam War, winning the “hearts and minds” of the populace became an element of the American war strategy. Lack of success in that endeavor led to an expansion of the war, including the wide scale aerial bombardment of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
So what Vietnam lessons apply to Afghanistan and Iraq? Or Iran and Pakistan? One place to start is an understanding of the region’s cultures, history and local economic conditions. Lifestyles, values, religion and social expectations differ from culture to culture. A test question for Afghanistan might be, “Why is America’s cultural presence—or military occupation—any more welcome than the Soviet invasion in the ‘80s?”
In the Middle East, the Iranian Revolution was the reaction of a populace that opposed the Anglo-American backed government of the Shah. Iran went from an oil-producing Western capitalist ally to an Islamic theocracy financed by its oil production. In the Reagan Administration’s zeal to undermine Iran, Saddam Hussein received U.S. support in his war against the Iranians. To thwart Reagan’s “Evil Empire,” Soviet Russia, the U.S. found a proxy to fight the Russians at Afghanistan. The Taliban became a useful tool, both armed and funded by the United States…Many analysts believe the Russian stalemate at Afghanistan two decades ago contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Islamic, militant Taliban continues to assert itself at Afghanistan, today fighting U.S. forces.
How can we understand the hearts and minds of Middle Eastern people without a fundamental understanding of Islam and regional cultures? Are all Muslims the same—like the 1950s and ‘60s assumptions about communists? In the case of communism, Soviet Russia is gone, and China has emerged as a major U.S. trading partner and primary shareholder in the U.S. Treasury.
Communism proved to be a regional, culturally defined doctrine. Capitalist (“free market”) democracy comes in many forms, too. Is free market, democratic Denmark the same as the U.S.? Denmark has made the largest commitment to environmental protection and green energy of any Western, Eastern or communist nation while providing national health insurance for its people. What does that say about American democracy and capitalism? While Denmark has been busy with progress, the U.S. taxpayers recently saved capitalism from a greed inspired collapse. American capital interests have since recovered while the middle class now suffers from a stalled economy, high unemployment, home foreclosures and soaring health care costs spurred by a corrupt, profit-motivated private health care industry…Not all capitalist democracies are the same.
Before the U.S. plunges headlong into Afghanistan, it would be wise to understand the cultures, history, motives and will of the regional peoples. That includes Pakistan, for any military escalation will surely involve Pakistan, where the Taliban is clearly present and creating mayhem daily.
So, who are these Taliban elements? During a Cold War effort to undermine the Soviets at Afghanistan, the United States supported the militant Taliban. Having unleashed the Taliban’s Islamic jihad more than two decades ago, the U.S. now attempts to stabilize that country and establish some semblance of democracy and human rights. A former ally, the Taliban, has been responsible for gross violations of women’s rights, subjugation and murder of opponents and harboring Al Qaeda.
Parallels do exist between U.S. policies at Vietnam and Afghanistan. In each region, the U.S. has backed a corrupt government without a popular base. President Hamid Karzai’s brother is a drug lord and power player within the government. Suspicion surrounds the recent presidential election. The U.S. “allies” at South Vietnam were also corrupt and money-driven; those who were not assassinated or overthrown by coup left the country with considerable wealth.
Winning the hearts and minds of any people begins with understanding. Understanding means a cultural dialogue and free sharing of values and objectives. Lately, war has become America’s first instrument of foreign policy, a precedent set with the preemptive strike on Iraq. Colonization, military occupation, collateral damage and civilian casualties rally support for insurgency. Violence protracts and lingers….Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq and Afghanistan—each country has a voice.
The next time Newsweek or the U.S. State Department grapples with why the United States lost at Vietnam, and how that insight might help mold the American strategy for Afghanistan, a dialogue with the Vietnamese people and their leadership would be beneficial. On that note, thorough research might include Laotians, Cambodians, Iraqis and Afghanis who have known firsthand the sound of U.S. boots and armament on their soil…For a resonant story line or comprehensive foreign policy paper, there is no substitute for firsthand experience.
***********************************************************
Indra’s Net
While Indra’s Net speaks to WWII and the Vietnam experience, it also speaks to the larger issue of war. War is once again the central theme of American foreign policy, and my blog welcomes earnest viewpoints and founded facts that illuminate the impact of contemporary wars and ways nations can ameliorate political and cultural differences—and defeat terrorism—short of wide-scale military conflict…Take in the novel. It’s up for discussion.—Moses Ludel
“…this ambitious novel spreads its net across the marches of history, reeling in gold nuggets of intriguing fictional action…One of the best things about this novel is the author’s firm grasp of history, especially as experienced from the viewpoint character Dinh…the comprehensive novel reads like a history book without the boring bits…An engaging, satisfying, and richly lengthy read.”—****Holly Chase Williams, ForeWord CLARION Reviews.
Featured at the New York and Los Angeles BookExpo, Beijing and Frankfurt Book Fairs…Available through all major book outlets and independent bookstores in soft cover edition and Amazon Kindle book.
The POW/MIA Flag
November 15, 2009
As a nation, we honor and mourn our collective sacrifices, from a violent Civil War in the 1860s to two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, 9/11 and today’s mounting casualties at the Middle East. Each war has its inevitable killed in action (KIA), the wounded (WIA), the missing in action (MIA) and those prisoners of war (POW) captured by unfriendly forces. In modern, technological warfare, so-called “collateral damage” to civilian populations, livestock and other domestic animals, wildlife and the ecological environment earns far less recognition.
The current Iraq and Afghanistan military intervention has grown increasingly controversial. Many compare U.S. policies and strategies to the Vietnam War. The zeitgeist of Vietnam lingers to this day, with a generation of Americans holding fast to antagonistic viewpoints. Many believe that the U.S. followed a misguided foreign policy, choosing military intervention over diplomacy and economic support. Others contend that patriotism means support for any action that U.S. policy makers prescribe—and military service means carrying out orders without questioning objectives.
Victims of war should not be forgotten. For over two decades, the Department of Defense and U.S. intelligence agencies agree that no U.S. military personnel remain imprisoned at Southeast Asia. Both the Vietnamese government and U.S. officials earnestly seek out MIA leads, returning discovered remains and any new information regarding U.S. soldiers and air crews lost in action. Significant cooperation takes place within a country more than 3/4ths the size of California—essentially the size of the inhabited Japanese islands. Current MIA losses at Vietnam number in the 1,200-1,400 range. By contrast, 78,750 WWII era MIAs remain missing.
Many who fly the POW/MIA flag see this symbol as patriotic, reflective of support for America. Disregarded is the fact that over 300,000 Vietnamese soldiers went MIA in that war. Difficult logistics and the nature of guerrilla warfare created mass losses of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) combat units, often in desolate locations. American veterans groups, in seeking information on U.S. MIAs, became increasingly aware of these NVA and Viet Cong losses. Vietnam era American soldiers have shared details leading to the return of both U.S. and Vietnamese remains. A quote from the PBS website illustrates this mutual concern:
“Vietnamese and Americans Help Each Other—American veterans have begun returning to Vietnam. Many come to revisit a moment in their lives they have not been able to understand. Some, however, are returning with the intent of helping Vietnamese…try to locate their loved ones. Since 1994, the Vietnam Veterans of America organization has supplied information on the fates of about 8,000 Vietnamese MIAs. In 1998, the organization provided key maps of mass graves that U.S. troops dug with bulldozers; a video tape of the battle of Kham Duv near DaNang; and identification papers and photographs that GIs had taken from corpses as mementos. So far, Americans have helped recover over 850 Vietnamese MIA remains. Vietnamese searching for their MIAs have in turn been able to provide new clues to the identities of American soldiers by handing over dog tags and other identifying information they have found.”
(For more information, see http://www.pbs.org/hanoi/nations.htm#vnmia.)
The loss of lives and ecological damage at Vietnam and Southeast Asia were catastrophic in scale. Surely, today’s Vietnam War-inspired POW/MIA flag supporters have deep, justified concerns for fellow U.S. soldiers, relatives and citizens who gave their lives in that war. So, too, the Vietnamese mourn their losses, the enormity of which (losses estimated as high as 3.8-million people) took the very best of that nation’s “American War” generation. Such losses to humanity serve as a reminder—in the end, war is the enemy…
“Every victory is a funeral…”—Lao Tsu
***********************************************************
Indra’s Net
While Indra’s Net speaks to WWII and the Vietnam experience, it also speaks to the larger issue of war. War is once again the central theme of American foreign policy, and my blog welcomes earnest viewpoints and founded facts that illuminate the impact of contemporary wars and ways nations can ameliorate political and cultural differences—and defeat terrorism—short of wide-scale military conflict…Take in the novel. It’s up for discussion.—Moses Ludel
“…this ambitious novel spreads its net across the marches of history, reeling in gold nuggets of intriguing fictional action…One of the best things about this novel is the author’s firm grasp of history, especially as experienced from the viewpoint character Dinh…the comprehensive novel reads like a history book without the boring bits…An engaging, satisfying, and richly lengthy read.”—****Holly Chase Williams, ForeWord CLARION Reviews.
Featured at the New York and Los Angeles BookExpo, Beijing and Frankfurt Book Fairs…Available through all major book outlets and independent bookstores in soft cover edition and Amazon Kindle book.
Veteran’s Day: “Every victory is a funeral…”—Lao Tsu
November 11, 2009
This day we honor the veterans of our foreign wars, those brave, youthful soldiers, sailors and aviators who have paid the supreme price for their service to the Nation…This date originates from the end of the Great War in 1918, the alleged war to end all wars.
Our modern observance of Veteran’s Day began in 1954 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued America’s first Veterans Day Proclamation. At that moment, in the midst of an escalating Cold War and global brushfire conflicts, President Eisenhower wanted Americans to “solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us re-consecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.”
President Eisenhower knew war well. At the onset of World War II, Dwight Eisenhower served as chief of staff to Commander General Walter Krueger. Promoted to brigadier general in 1941, Eisenhower rose to major general in March 1942. Just months later, he was appointed commander of all U.S. forces in Europe. Eisenhower served as the commander of allied forces for the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, rising to Supreme Allied Commander in charge of the D-Day invasion of Europe. From the last winter of World War II to the unconditional surrender of the Axis Powers, Dwight D. Eisenhower served as a five-star general.
General Eisenhower believed that World War II had sent a clear signal to the world community. He resigned his military role and entered the American academic community as president of Columbia University. Dwight D. Eisenhower was instrumental in ending the Korean War and went on to become President of the United States in 1954. While facing the Cold War decisively, President Eisenhower also took into office both the experience of two world wars and a substantial education in American history. Some Eisenhower quotes that help us honor this great American general, national leader and historian include:
“Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in this world must first come to pass in the heart of America.”
“Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you’re going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book….”
“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”
In his final speech before the inauguration of John Kennedy as President of the United States, President Eisenhower left the American political scene with this insightful speech:
[Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040]
“My fellow Americans:
Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.
This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.
Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.
Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.
My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.
In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.
II.
We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America’s leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.
III.
Throughout America’s adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.
Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology — global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle — with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.
Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research — these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.
But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs — balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage — balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.
The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.
IV.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
V.
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
VI.
Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.
Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war — as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years — I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.
Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.
VII.
So — in this my last good night to you as your President — I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.
You and I — my fellow citizens — need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation’s great goals.
To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America’s prayerful and continuing aspiration:
We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.”
Faced with the prospect of 9/11, President Bush shared few things in common with Dwight Eisenhower. Though each of the Republican Party, Bush’s tactical approach was more like Senator Joseph McCarthy than that of a wise and seasoned warrior and peacetime leader. As we enter into the ninth year of conflict at Iraq and Afghanistan, orchestrated initially by the Bush Administration and perpetuated with the Obama Administration, let us look to a leader who bore a genuine standard of Americanism and democracy, the founder of Veteran’s Day.
Eisenhower’s wartime Commander in Chief, Franklin Roosevelt said upon his inauguration, “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself —nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” He spoke to the economic devastation of the Great Depression, and took this belief into the Second World War. President Obama would do well to observe the roots and solemn purport of Veteran’s Day and not the contemporary, politically expedient spin…
***********************************************************
Indra’s Net
While Indra’s Net speaks to WWII and the Vietnam experience, it also speaks to the larger issue of war. War is once again the central theme of American foreign policy, and my blog welcomes earnest viewpoints and founded facts that illuminate the impact of contemporary wars and ways nations can ameliorate political and cultural differences—and defeat terrorism—short of wide-scale military conflict…Take in the novel. It’s up for discussion.—Moses Ludel
“…this ambitious novel spreads its net across the marches of history, reeling in gold nuggets of intriguing fictional action…One of the best things about this novel is the author’s firm grasp of history, especially as experienced from the viewpoint character Dinh…the comprehensive novel reads like a history book without the boring bits…An engaging, satisfying, and richly lengthy read.”—****Holly Chase Williams, ForeWord CLARION Reviews.
Featured at the New York and Los Angeles BookExpo, Beijing and Frankfurt Book Fairs…Available through all major book outlets and independent bookstores in soft cover edition and Amazon Kindle book.
Vietnam War No Longer “Yesterday’s News”…
November 10, 2009
I wrote the original draft of Indra’s Net more than a decade ago. With the Vietnam War and Gulf War behind us, the book pointed toward the obsolescence of war…Then came September 11, 2001, and the American people faced a new enemy. For the first time, war was not an offshore or nationally defined venture; terror had arrived on our shores in its grossest form. The indiscriminate losses of life associated with terrorism, urban insurgency and sectarian violence were no longer distant.
Nineteen Middle Eastern terrorists had thwarted airport security systems and utilized our domestic airliners to wreak havoc. Terrorism from outside was new to America, and the U.S. response to 9/11 reflected traditional reactions: identify an overseas foe, foster a fear response within our domestic populace and involve military forces.
Frustrated by the ambiguous size and nebulous location of Al-Qaeda, the Bush Administration sought out a larger-focus target. The Gulf War had been recent enough to offer up Iraq as a potential threat. Although the Iraqi view of Al-Qaeda was not much different from ours, Iraq had a bellicose leader, perceived to be a belligerent force in the Middle East. Better yet, Iraq, once the world’s fifth largest armed force, had been systematically contained by a U.S. no-fly zone. U.S. strike forces could easily target the remaining areas of that country. With Americans uncertain and fearful of terrorism on U.S. soil, Iraq became the enemy.
Fear of Weapons of Mass Destruction served as fodder. Although an unfounded, calculated Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld propaganda effort, alleged WMDs became the rallying point for a preemptive strike by the U.S. Once on the ground inside Iraq, U.S. forces mired. The hastily drawn battle plan and loose sense for the “enemy” revealed a glaring lack of understanding about regional culture, politics and values. As at Vietnam, the U.S. shifted from “liberating” a country to creating a military theater and fighting a war. The battle lines soon pitted the world’s best trained and most technologically advanced fighting force against loosely organized guerrilla insurgents fighting on their own soil.
The casualties of Iraq and mounting casualties of Afghanistan in many ways resemble those of the Vietnam War. Improved battlefield medical techniques and services have exceeded any previous war, with 90% of injured U.S. forces surviving. This brings with it a phenomenon: the largest number of American amputees since the Civil War, with an alarmingly high number of traumatic brain injuries and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder victims.
A U.S. foreign policy based upon military action and establishing a sympathetic government is nothing new. Afghanistan’s current leadership bears a striking resemblance to the string of suspect presidents that the U.S. propped up in South Vietnam between the mid-1950s and 1975. Similarities between Southeast Asia and the Afghanistan/Pakistan region do not stop there. If we continue applying failed entry strategies, persistently expanding this war, can the U.S. expect a different outcome than at Vietnam?
Why is Vietnam significant to America’s role in the world today? U.S. foreign policy at Iraq and Afghanistan is not unlike the Southeast Asia policies of the 1950s and early ‘60s. Less than half a century ago, the U.S. became embroiled in the longest war in its history. Are we destined to exceed that record in the Middle East? What alternate strategies can we explore?
***********************************************************
Indra’s Net
While Indra’s Net speaks to WWII and the Vietnam experience, it also speaks to the larger issue of war. War is once again the central theme of American foreign policy, and my blog welcomes earnest viewpoints and founded facts that illuminate the impact of contemporary wars and ways nations can ameliorate political and cultural differences—and defeat terrorism—short of wide-scale military conflict…Take in the novel. It’s up for discussion.—Moses Ludel
“…this ambitious novel spreads its net across the marches of history, reeling in gold nuggets of intriguing fictional action…One of the best things about this novel is the author’s firm grasp of history, especially as experienced from the viewpoint character Dinh…the comprehensive novel reads like a history book without the boring bits…An engaging, satisfying, and richly lengthy read.”—****Holly Chase Williams, ForeWord CLARION Reviews.
Featured at the New York and Los Angeles BookExpo, Beijing and Frankfurt Book Fairs…Available through all major book outlets and independent bookstores in soft cover edition and Amazon Kindle book.
Indra’s Net
November 4, 2009
In most ways, I was a product of my generation, a typical baby boomer who came of age in the ‘sixties. My Carson Valley cohorts plunged headlong into the culture of muscle cars, motorcycles, sports, rock music and mild rebelliousness. Sparsely populated, the Sierra region exposed us to hunting, fishing and the basics of outdoor survival. Our high school’s bigger-than-life outlets were football, basketball, track and winter sports. I was a Douglas High School honor roll student and supported my varied rolling stock interests by working after school and summers at a gas station on U.S. Highway 395.
All of this played idyllic sans a building background noise, the escalating war at Vietnam. In my first year of high school, President Kennedy’s assassination left Lyndon Johnson the task of carrying out America’s military “advisory” role at Vietnam. Elected in 1964, President Johnson soon escalated Vietnam into the largest global military adventure since WWII. The rapidly expanding draft, stories of draftees shipping promptly overseas and the persistent drone of the six o’clock news sent a clear message to America’s young male adults.
The political tone at a rural Nevada community was largely conservative. Conformity and Cold War jingo served as teaching standards. Our U.S. History teacher relied upon Department of Defense newsreels to explain America’s role in the world, and most of my forty-eight classmates had trouble separating U.S. foreign policy and Vietnam objectives from winning a Friday night football or basketball game. Few, if any, questioned the U.S. involvement at Vietnam.
Everyone deserves one or two scholastic mentors. I was fortunate to have two, and one was my high school Government and Civics teacher. Mr. Jarrett offered a test the first week of class that covered the entire semester’s content. I scored in the mid-nineties and spent the semester in the library, researching and writing six-week reports while independently studying for the class’ scheduled exams.
While my classmates labored through the thick textbook, I read Newsweek magazine and, by choice, digested the politically-motivated works of Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Dalton Trumbo, W.E.B. DuBois, Sinclair Lewis and Howard Fast. I shared my six-week reports with the class, earnestly curious youth whose eyes quickly glazed over. When I graduated from high school with the Daughters of the American Revolution history scholarship in hand, I possessed a thorough understanding of American history and the tenets of the United States Constitution.
The test of my convictions came in the spring of 1968, following a pre-induction physical for the draft. I was a healthy, military-capable specimen with a likely ticket to Vietnam. As recruiters’ business cards found their way beneath my apartment doorway on East 15th Street in Oakland, it was time to put my values on the line. Like George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and many others, I considered the beaten paths of least resistance: joining a National Guard unit or maintaining a student deferment. Close high school friends had taken the National Guard option, and I might have pulled that one off. Gnawing at my conscience, however, was the fact that I simply did not support the role our postwar military played in world affairs. Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, George Washington, John Adams and other founding fathers held a similar view when squaring off with the British Empire.
I considered my few options. There was resistance to the draft, which led to a mandatory prison sentence. A long shot took into account that a four-year member of the National Honor Society with a high GATB score might end up well behind the lines, punching typewriter keys with a 45-caliber pistol at hand. For the luckiest, a crapshoot assignment to West Germany might provide a chance to see Continental Europe and enjoy a taste of Old World cultures.
Then there was the issue of conscience. And my conscience recalled the Second World War, the Holocaust and two atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Wasn’t that message clear? War was no longer a viable way to ameliorate differences. Didn’t WWII bring the world into a community capable of resolving issues collectively, without mayhem? Hey, weren’t we technologically in the nuclear era of mutually assured destruction and past the point that conventional warfare served as foreign policy?
This sounded like a basis for objecting to contemporary war in general, and my conscience had its hard-won place in the Selective Service System: classification I-O, better known as Conscientious Objector. I filed Form SS150 with my local board at Minden, Nevada, thoroughly aware that rejection of my petition for C.O. status would require an appeal to the Nevada State Board for Selective Service. Failing that appeal, the options were induction into the military or prison.
Working at Oakland, California, I waited each day for the mail reply, preparing myself for the verdict. Support letters from a Jesuit priest and an Episcopalian minister, each of whom knew my family and our anti-war convictions, surely played a role in the local board’s decision. I made C.O. status on the first round. In the spring of 1968, I joined the handful of Nevada Conscientious Objectors and quickly pursued a suitable Alternate Service role. From 1968-70, I worked for Paradise Valley Hospital at National City, California, serving in the engineering department as the fleet mechanic for the hospital’s support vehicles and maintenance equipment.
Of all my life experiences, that period ranks high. I expressed my conscience and served the American people in a way that made perfect sense, meeting the health, safety and welfare guidelines of the Selective Service System. Personally, I acquired useful skills that years later I shared with hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens through my teaching, technical writing and illustrating work. I am proud of my service and grateful for the opportunity to take a stand, a position that helped define my adult life…
Given the current economic recession, growing unemployment, wind down from a controversial war in Iraq and the quest to quell terrorists across Afghanistan and the Middle East, the Vietnam War seems of scant relevance to contemporary Americans. Since the Gulf War, and especially the 9/11 tragedy, America has simply moved on from Vietnam. When U.S. troops, air forces and our clandestine agencies left Vietnam more than three decades ago, that nation also moved on. Today, Vietnam prospers within the international community.
The release of my first novel, Indra’s Net, in the aftermath of 9/11 and the Iraq War is no coincidence. As the Bush Administration fomented fear and foisted misinformation upon the American people, the preemptive ‘Shock and Awe’ strike recalled America’s escalation of the Vietnam conflict in the mid-‘sixties. Not unlike the Iraq War, that escalation grew from Washington’s distortion of facts. For Iraq, George W. Bush launched charges of our imminent threat from weapons of mass destruction. In Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson’s manipulation of facts rushed Congress into the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and sanctioned the bombing of Hanoi and the rest of North Vietnam.
In the wake of President Johnson’s then President Nixon’s political and military measures, 58,000 American lives were lost with 300,000 wounded. More than 3-million Vietnamese people died, with matching numbers of Cambodias and Laotians. U.S. use of napalm, conventional bombing and Agent Orange defoliant ruined one-third of South Vietnam’s land area. Applying Cold War technology and precision, the U.S. bombs dropped on North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia amounted to 8-million tons, four times the total tonnage dropped by all belligerents during World War II. Despite this effort, “victory” did not occur against a Third World adversary, a people bent on self-determination and national unity.
Following the initial U.S. aerial attack, a full-scale invasion and the occupation of Iraq, the death toll remains ambiguous. Civilian casualty estimates range from 300,000 to over one-million. The numbers vary because of inaccurate reporting, subterfuge and outright misinformation intended to minimize the damage caused by the United States. As with Vietnam, U.S. news agencies remain quick to report American casualties, skewing the sense of loss.
Like the Vietnam War, the U.S. military roles at Iraq and Afghanistan have polarized Americans. Beyond the maiming and deaths of our fittest young people, many question the rush to arms and overwhelming use of force as a political tool. A past generation recalls the never ending flights of B-52 bombers out of U.S. bases in Thailand and the Philippines, dropping round-the-clock Whispering Death on Asian soil. Will that be the aim of American foreign policy in the Middle East and Central Asia? In an era of advanced stealth aircraft, drones and cruise missiles, will we minimize our own casualties while escalating the number of civilian and bystander deaths, dismissing them as collateral damage?
I conceived Indra’s Net and birthed its characters from a deep respect for facts and people’s values. Whether WWII, Vietnam or Afghanistan, wars claim people and victimize families, communities and cultures. The highest respect we can pay any K.I.A., P.O.W. or M.I.A. is realism about the context of his or her experience.
Neither ideological nor drably statistical, Indra’s Net portrays individuals, families and cultures that survive and reconcile the traumas of war. Indra’s Net is inclusive, devoid of polarized viewpoints that avoid or minimize the tragedy, loss and humiliation of war. Identifiable characters come to life through the sensibilities of the reader. Intentionally, the reader establishes a personal, visceral sense for the landscape and owns the experience.
This blog is an open invitation. While Indra’s Net speaks to WWII and the Vietnam experience, it also speaks to the larger issue of war. War is once again the central theme of American foreign policy, and my blog welcomes earnest viewpoints and founded facts that illuminate the impact of contemporary wars and ways nations can ameliorate political and cultural differences—and defeat terrorism—short of wide-scale military conflict…Take in the novel. It’s up for discussion…
******************************************************
Indra’s Net
“…this ambitious novel spreads its net across the marches of history, reeling in gold nuggets of intriguing fictional action…One of the best things about this novel is the author’s firm grasp of history, especially as experienced from the viewpoint character Dinh…the comprehensive novel reads like a history book without the boring bits…An engaging, satisfying, and richly lengthy read.”—****Holly Chase Williams, ForeWord CLARION Reviews.
Featured at the New York and Los Angeles BookExpo, Beijing and Frankfurt Book Fairs…Available through all major book outlets and independent bookstores in soft cover edition and Amazon Kindle book.
Buy Indra's Net at Trafford.com
