second minute

Almost forgot... Okay, I did forget, but now I remembered that I had wanted to post about this book: Nhật ký Đặng Thùy Trâm (Đặng Thùy Trâm's Diary). I haven't read much about the VietNam/American War because, quite simply, I hate war. Hate the inhumane acts of killing others simply because they are "other." I try to keep my politics to myself and will do so for now.

But the point of this post is to point you in the direction of this diary: written by a doctor, fresh out of medical school, and her struggles (emotionally, physically and spiritually) as she tried to save as many people as she could. She died a month after I was born, in June 1970. She was "enemy" but by reading her words, it's clear that the term enemy is meaningless in this situation. She was a woman trying to do her best in a war that ripped lives apart, both figuratively and literally. The Vietnamese version is scanned in .pdf format on the Texas Tech website and in book form throughout VietNam, but the English version won't be available in print until next fall.

Read the NPR story:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6492819

Read the VietNam Net story: http://english.vietnamnet.vn/lifestyle/2005/08/479223/