Final Protective Fire

Monday, August 05, 2002

 

Glenn Reynolds links to an interesting story about one of the engineers of the thermo-baric bombs used to destroy cave complexes in Afghanistan - a Vietnamese immigrant.

This story reminded me of a gentlemen I met a few years ago who was also an immigrant from Vietnam. He had told me his story about escaping from Vietnam, being fired on by Vietnamese border guards, enduring weeks of thirst and hunger in an open boat until being picked up by a U.S. Navy destroyer.

The first time he told me of his struggle to get to the U.S., I was speechless. Everytime I think of his story to this day, and I was reminded again by running into the gentlemen today at lunch hour on the street downtown, I am struck by two emotions/reactions: the first is anger that the U.S. did not do a better job of protecting the Vietnamese people from the genocidal North Vietnamese communists and the second is the awe that I live in a country so special that this man would risk death to get here.

Robin 1:44 PM