'The Girl I met on Christmas Day’ 1968 Dan Nang' (original 26 Dec. 2009)

'The Girl I met on Christmas Day’ 1968  Dan Nang

was the first story that I wrote when I opened a blog
'A Time For Revolution' (original 26 Dec. 2009)

I lost the password and could not get back in so I am 
updating it here. This is the most important story to me 
because what happened this day changed me forever...

I landed in Da Nang early on Christmas morning...2-3am.

Later I would fly north to Dong Ha, and then by truck to

Quang Tri to join the 3rd Marines at Fox 2/3 (Mai Loc),
then 2nd Platoon Golf 2/3 Second Battalion, Third Marine 
Regiment,  at Charlie 3 and Charlie 2.

We were taken into Da Nang city briefly after being warned

that begging children might be thieves. We came upon a group

of 20 or so such children.. I had some money to give and sweets.

At first it felt good to give to people in need, but I felt bad that

they had to beg. And, I asked myself why aren't we (the US
military) feeding them (my first realization that things weren't
right). Almost all were under 10, but some had amputations,
shrapnel damage and more. Many were okay, but this was what
this hard marine so eager for combat saw on his first day in
Viet Nam .

I felt someone's presence at the back of the group. I knew she

was looking at me, and when I looked up I saw a lovely girl of

between 11-13. She looked right into my eyes (softly) for a bit, 
then lowered (bowed) her head. But, by then, she had torn my 

heart out.

She did not hold her hand out like the others. I think she felt

different...not as young as the others)...and marred. I was frozen

in place as I looked at her.

She raised her head again, made eye contact...kept it for a bit and

lowered her head again. I waded through the crowd till I stood in 

front of her and she raised her head again and we looked at each 

other.

I nodded to her, and she at me. I felt a lump in my throat, and my

eyes were wet from tears. I took her hand and gave her all the money

I had, except for what was in my boots, and put candy atop it to make

it seem like I was just giving her sweets. Then I nodded, and made a

head gesture at the children behind us, at the money and looked at her

so she would be careful. She understood.

It was then, that I knew how cruel was is. She was a girl, and if others

suspected she had money, or more money they might try to take from

her. They were all trying to survive.

We both nodded to each other, and looked at each other for a long 
and tender moment. I know I was holding back tears, and she knew. 
We shared a special and poignant moment in space and time that I 

will never forget.

You see this beautiful Vietnamese girl had no right eye and, had 

minimal treatment because she didn't wear an American uniform! 

She was not even given an eye patch.

But she was a beautiful young girl. And, it is that young girl, and 
her soulful look, and her situation that has been with me ever since.

Da Nang did not have an eye hospital until 1998. Plenty of money 

for war, but not for people.

I know she appreciated whatever I gave her, but it felt inadequate to 

me. I could see the whole her, and my heart ached(s) for her. Ive'

always wondered what became of her? I would have food, water,

medical care, but she?

It is those things-what happens to children, old people, and especially

(young girls and women), their homes, families, villes, cultures, societies, 

and also, to other Marines blown to bits, maimed, traumatized for a medal

that hurts and causes pain most every day of my life.

Those of us who survived had to fight our own government for recognition

that their wounds/conditions merited treatment. But,the children of Vietnam

Afghanistan, Iraq or any country America wages war upon...have to fend

for theirselves.

But she is 'The Girl I Met on Christmas Day 1968’ ' or 'The Christmas Girl'

and she can make me cry easy...when I think of her. I will never forget

her, and always am thinking of her at this time of year whilst everyone

goes shopping and carries on.

War is a criminal enterprise! Or, as Major-General Smedley D. Butler said,

'War is a Racket'.

Vietnam is over there, but the war is still inside. All of the hurt you see or

feel and suppress at the time...you feel later when you are home...and forever.

When the Po-Lice gun down innocent people without cause the people have the right to respond in kind

I believe that when the Po-Lice are gunning people down black
men in America, or taze people with just cause, but especially
murder as they have in Ferguson, MO (Michael Brown) and
other places, or whenever and wherever Po-Lice engage in
police brutality and unlawful killings, then the forfeit the right
to be treated with respect.

On  average police between 2005 to 2012 Po-lice in America have
killed 400 people of color in the United States. It is murder.
(RT  'Local police kill at least 400 people a year, mostly minorities'

August 15, 2014  http://on.rt.com/e6nm6s )

In a speech labeled 'Democracy is Hypocrisy' Malcolm X
had this to say

"The police put their club upside your head, and then turn around

and accuse you of attacking them.

Every case of police brutality against a Negro follows the same

pattern.  They attack you, bust you upside your mouth, and then

take you to court and charge you with assault.

What kind of democracy is that?

What kind of(uh) freedom is that?

What kind of social or political system is it when a black has

no voice in court? Has no nothing on his side other than what the

white man chooses to give you?

My brothers and sisters we have to put a stop to this and it will never

be stopped until we stop it ourselves. They attack the victim and then

the criminal who attacked the victim accuses the victim of attacking him.

This is American justice. This is American democracy and those of you

who are familiar with it know that in American democracy is hypocrisy."

It is not democracy!

It is not Freedom!

As for "What kind of social or political system is it when a black has

no voice in court?" It is an Apartheid system.

What is to be done? The people have a human right to defend themselves!
If the police murder a black man or any person without just cause and then
come into the community like storm troopers determined to put down any and
all protests then the people have the right, and should form a militia that can
overpower the local police, or force them to disarm, and to treat them with
humanity.

If the Po-lice put snipers around during protests like the Egyptian regime,
then they should be forewarned that for every sniper that they put in place
the people will put one hundred of their own.

There is a determined effort by the ruling powers to crush the people
and beat them into submission. That is not freedom or democracy. It
is the tyranny of the wealthy and the people have the right to defend 
themselves, and put an end to such tyranny.

If the rulers of the US, UK, and all major powers can train and arm
their youth and force them into wars where they kill to achieve the
objectives of the wealthy, then the wealthy are saying 'This is how we
settle or achieve our goals through violence.' It is all they know.

When armed police are killing people as in Ferguson, MO the people have the right to defend themselves. It is an inalienable right!

When armed police are killing people as in Ferguson, MO
the people have the right to defend themselves. It is an inalienable right!

"As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have 
told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have 
tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that 
social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask -- 
and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using
massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it 
wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my 
voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first 
spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my 
own government..."


One of the challenges that I know I have in this life is the issue
of using violence to settle disputes. This has been a struggle of
my life.

From my 15th year I did two years of martial arts. Karate, judo and
jiu jitsu.

When I was 17 and 18 the US government trained me to kill people,
and also to hurt them badly in my US Marine Corps training. Then,
I went to Vietnam, and every day since I returned I have had to live
with not just what I did, but what I saw and experienced. Wiping and
cleaning the inside of a bunker of exploded human remains is almost
as bad as killing someone in what it does to a persons heart and soul.
It was the hardest thing that I have ever done.

But, somehow I came out of the brutality and savagery of the war with
greater humanity than I entered with. Yet using violence to subdue and
dominate completely an opponent when confronted with by a dangerous
person or situation, even police violence that has often been my resort.

When I see what the police forces are doing in the United States...
gunning down Black people as if they were slave owners during slavery,
then I remember what Malcolm X said:

"Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and
oppression, because power, real power, comes from our conviction which 
produces action, uncompromising action.

Malcolm X

And I also adhere to this principle:

"I don't even call it violence when it's in self defense; I call it intelligence.

Malcolm X

When a country like the United States, which is really an international criminal

organization uses massive amounts of violence across the world as it has since its

inception, then it also uses violence against it's own people. And that is what is

happening in the US at present.

In Ferguson Mo, Michael Brown was gunned down without cause. He was

murdered. The police have been terrorizing people in an attempt to deny them

the right to protest unlawful killings. They are trying to force the people into

submission.

The Declaration of Independence states "But when a long train of abuses and 

usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them 

under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such 

government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

And, in America as elsewhere that is the case, but especially in America. 

If the PO-lice are going to gas the citizens, then the people must obtain

quality gas masks and other materials.

I believe the words of Martin Luther King below, but we have the right to

resist and not be ground down. If the rulers of America are certain that only

violence will continue their rule then the people have the right to use all due

force when necessary, but we must find a way to use the power of love and 

non-violence to bring down the walls of repression and oppression.

Martin Luther King Jr. - December 11, 1964

- "Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; 

the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to 

oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method

which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method 

is love."

Thoughts on the struggle in Palestine: Ethnic cleansing and Genocide in the so-called 'Holy Land.'

Thoughts on the struggle in Palestine: 
Ethnic cleansing and Genocide in the so-called 'Holy Land.'

In life one of the hardest things to do is to take an unpopular position,
even though it be the truth. That is the case with speaking out against
the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the brutal oppression that is
required to keep the status quo...a state of Apartheid in the so-called
'Holy Land.'

There is nothing 'Holy' about Apartheid! It is pure evil to keep a people
living in that state.

I have lost friends and people closer because I have spoken out in support
of the Palestinian people. But To me, after I volunteered twice for combat
in the Vietnam War, as a Marine Corps rifleman (a 'grunt' as we called
ourselves) and came back alive through the grace of God what matters is
that I stand on the side of the oppressed. In Vietnam I was a tool of the
oppressor; the imperialist.

Most people cannot bring themselves to criticize Israel's treatment of
the Palestinian people. The world also remained silent when the Jews
were being herded into concentration camps. The Palestinian people
have had more bombs dropped on them recently than the Germans
dropped on London during the Siege of London. As someone said
today in Cork, what is taking place now is the Siege of Gaza!!

 What is Israel, but a nation of Europeans in the Middle East. The
only one, and like all other places where Europeans have colonized
from North and South America to New Zealand and Australia to South
Africa to Palestine they have relied on ethnic cleansing and genocide,
and that is what the Zionist of Israel are doing.

The Zionist leader of Israel David Ben-Gurior made it clear in advance
when he described the methods to be used by the European colonizers
of Palestine:

"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and
the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population."

And General Moshe Dayan had this to say when the Palestinian people
were driven from their homes, villages, towns and cities:

" We don't have a solution, and you will continue living like dogs, and
whoever wants will go, and will see how this procedure will work out.
For now, it works out."

If people cannot see for real what is happening and feel compassion
and demand a just solution then where are their hearts?

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Martin Luther King, Jr.