From the desk of Jan Apanich
While reflecting on the past year I contemplate how life’s unexpected twists and turns can at times seem like navigating landmines. The intended analogy here immediately grounds me as I think about the communities in and around Laos quite literally spending lifetimes navigating landmines.
How does one navigate life knowing at any moment you, your neighbors or your loved ones can be maimed or killed and at a higher rate than any other place on earth because politicians wanted to secure their power on the world stage?
Growing up in the 1980-90s, I’d often get the question “No, where are you really from?” after I’d answered “New Jersey” the first time around.
“Where is that?” was the usual follow up to “Thailand” and then I’d have to further elaborate “near Vietnam” before a cloud of vague understanding would settle upon the classroom as the teacher checks the globe before pointing it out. Southeast Asia was practically unknown to my peers in the suburban 4th grade classroom outside of maybe those kids whose parents let them watch the First Blood Rambo movies or Oliver Stone’s Platoon newly released in 1986.
In hindsight always being reminded you are different was a lot for a kid to navigate but it was also a beacon reminder that everyone is an individual with the ability to contribute and further the collective community to a new level of understanding.
It took compassion and acceptance to navigate those sometimes hurtful and degrading comments and questions. I learned the unknowns are what make people less empathetic and accept that their actions don’t come from a place of malice. It makes it easier to laugh, and all that’s left to do is be yourself and shed light on the situation.
“Yes, there are elephants in Thailand. No, my relatives don’t ride elephants to school.”
People just didn’t know and who can fault them for that? It’s funny and ok to laugh but the line between “laughing with you” and “laughing at you” wasn’t always clear cut. As I grew older I deduced offensive speech coming from people either have malice intent or is fueled by ignorance, but continued to laugh along at the Long Duk Dong jokes anyway to get by the awkward situations.
My first introduction to the hidden details behind the Vietnam War was from my high school friend who had lent me a VHS copy of Swimming to Cambodia. He said, you should watch this, it’s really good. At first I thought, I’m not from Cambodia but then I got curious about what a guy named Spalding Gray could say about Cambodia.
My mind exploded. Swimming to Cambodia was a monologue written and performed by actor Spalding Gray detailing what he learned about the existence of the “Secret War” researching his small role in The Killing Fields movie. It was a cross between a documentary and a theatrical one-man play that laid out with vigor the government's covert activities during the Vietnam War and the aftermath. Upon learning that millions of cluster bombs were air dropped in and around Laos during the Vietnam War by the US Air Force stationed in Da Nang in Southern Vietnam and nearby Thailand naval bases for nine years straight, it shocked me back to that elementary classroom.
“That’s why they knew Vietnam! My parents’ hometown was used to bomb our neighbors! Did the teachers know about the Neutrality of Laos Agreement that the US blatantly ignored? WTF!”
It was hard to accept because the malice intent (or was it ignorance?) was clear as day. One just has to visit the Legacies of War homepage to put into context what the most bombed country per capita in the history of the modern world looks like. Two million tons of ordnance bombs dropped on a country that was “neutral” in a war initiated by the country I now also call home, using my parents’ and ancestors homeland as a base to carry out that act. My heart hurt at the thought of all the suffering caused then, and continues to cause now, plus the added associated guilt of being complicit as a born citizen of the perpetrating country never sat well within me and was an uneasy burden that didn’t seem to have a resolve.
Mixed emotions like rage and contempt for authority underlined most of my adolescence and well into early adulthood. I didn’t know what to do with these emotions but found solace in the fact that my friend was kind enough to share this piece of art and history and would later find more cultural acknowledgement from underground bands taking up names like Agent Orange and songs like the Dead Kennedy’s “Holiday in Cambodia” and the Clash’s “Charlie Don’t Surf”. All of that carved out a small communal space for those emotions. Seeing bands being formed around different beliefs and political ideologies was inspiring and that’s when I first learned about the motivating influence of cultural expression and later the power of advocacy work.
If there’s going to continue to be covert CIA missions or politicians keeping secrets and not being held accountable for their mistakes or misjudgments, we as citizens can’t do much but be compassionate to the fact that voices of the past need to be heard and continue to be expressed in order to influence action.
Fast forward a decade or so later these inspiring emotions would swell up again when I was introduced to Legacies of War, which taught me that compassion and acceptance can heal even the most malice of intentions through action and advocacy work. It was the resolve of that uneasy, discordant feeling.
I first came to know Legacies of War through an event with Article 22 that the importers of Beerlao in NYC, whom I worked for at the time, sponsored. It was then that everything I’ve read in books and seen in documentaries about this humanitarian horror took form and started to mutate into something positive as the night went on. This was the first time I saw a communal expression shining light on the horrors I’ve been harboring in my head and amplified the fact that it is still very closely connected to the present. I was witnessing and taking part in a community advocacy group and it was an empowering moment to not only turn compassion into action, but also share it with a community.
That night I got an Article 22 bracelet, one of the many jewelry pieces they design and make out of shrapnel pieces collected all over Laos and the surrounding area, a physical reminder there are many more unexploded bombs in the ground that remain to be found. The very act of transforming a piece of man-made metal with the intent of death and destruction into a delicate accessory one can wear to express beauty and forgiveness was morbidly calming.
That was almost 15 years ago and as we project ahead to 2025 and beyond, I’m thankful and continue to be inspired by the ongoing work Legacies of War continues to do to get government policies in place for the removal of these unexploded bombs so that Laos and all those “near Vietnam” can heal.
If you haven’t yet checked out the Library section of the Legacies site, there’s a plethora of information and stories on The American Secret War in Laos and those “near Vietnam” from accounts of Hmong tribes being trained by the CIA to carry out missions to US Air Force veterans coming to terms with their part in the bombings.
