Thang Nguyen 555

It happened. Oil and water. Mixing. At the tail-end of the war, Vietnam War. Fifty years on. Still, like yesterday. In-class Tet celebration. Co-ed senior high. My last year in Vietnam. Senior panic. Every moment matters. Knowing we would never see each other and be the same. A sense of premonition. An instant reminiscence.

As Class President, I produced an event: the decoration, the human assignment , the theme and the music. Wait, we don’t have the bass guitar. Send someone. Even the fat guy. To the music store. To rent one by the hour.

I overlooked a small detail (which often comes back and bites you): I did not give him pocket change out of our petty cash. Only that I would pay the rental fees after the event. Lord and behold. The guy took his time! Where was he? Next door, you could hear music and their celebration/dancing. You felt precious time passing. Opportunity missed. Opportunity that would never come around ever. Our equivalent of prom.

When he finally showed, carrying that rental piece of instrument that looked like a big violin (all good ones had been rented out on that busy day), we hurried to put the band together. The mike, the amplifier and the works.

Testing. One, two, three.

Before we knew it, it’s time. Noon. Time to clean up for afternoon classes to set up their celebration. The Head Master went around, unplugging our power chords. Then that didn’t work. He shut down the whole school, leaving us packing.

Had the fat guy not taken a cyclo. Had he hitched a ride on a bike (as I did every day). Had I given him petty cash for the taxi (even then the round-about, conceived and constructed after French urban architectural model, wouldn’t have shaved off much). The split screen would have seen me pacing on the left, while on screen right, my beloved “retard” shielding his Paul McCartney’s-like bass guitar from aggressive traffic.

In looking back, we often remember the good, the bad and the ugly. One of the uglies was at another dance party where it’s my turn to sing; a slow number to give our rock band a break (stirring and settling). It so happened, my girlfriend’s x asked her to dance, leaving me stuck on stage to awkwardly finish out my number: “Love me with all your heart…as I love you, don’t give me your love, for an hour…”

Mark Owen’s 60-minutes interview on “the Killing of Bin Laden” : “here is a guy who told other people to kill, to die , yet he himself did not even put up a fight in the end”.

The point is, it is very disjointing between words and action. I might say, it’s the easiest thing in the world to rent a bass guitar, then hop on the horse and bring it back here. After all. it’s only a mile and a half . Yet it did not happen given Saigon traffic.

Like our Master Mind of the 9/11 attack. When it comes to actual fighting and dying, our strategist and rhetorician found himself short. Quite short, compared to Seal 6.

Those cyclos are now relegated to and pedalled by ARVN vets for US vets to tour, leisurely through Saigon congested streets. Museum piece. Like horse buggy. Like hot-air balloons. Never supposed for timely “Prime” delivery of musical instruments.

Shortly after power got unplugged at my school, the city itself got unplugged at the hand-over of the Independence Palace. Tanks on the street. Cyclos hid behind shady trees. Advancing army, most of them young, real young, marched in formation with heads turned, quite taken with the Pearl of the Orient and its trapping: round-abouts, billboards and trees. (like the Times Square sailor famous kiss). The same scene which my fat classmate took in, I am sure, while holding on to the bass guitar, on his leisure ride, now afforded only by Western backpackers and G.I.’s (most of whom had come home the year before).

The cyclo and the guitar. In my mind. What song would have been played had it arrived as planned? Perhaps “Oh mon amour” by Christophe. I sang that at a previous gathering, on my own, with my guitar and without the acoustic fanfare. Just me, without the accessories and access to an amplifier. That 11-12 noon hour stayed on as one of my longest hours. I could still hear, even now, the sound of my heart-beating without bass guitar. Oil and water. Cyclo and guitar. Words and action. Don’t mix.

It fell. Gravity. Weight. Collapse.

Same with lies and hypocrisy. Hand-me-down and revised version as the Like new norm of “untruth”.

One day, all on their own (weight), they collapse. Like a Ponzi scheme. Like Enron (among its mission statements: “respect” and “integrity”). Like 2008’s derivative packaging (S&P at 666 bottoms). Like Theranos (Steve Jobs re-incarnated).

Social media in contrast thrives on Network Effect, regardless of content ( by nature, it tilts more towards visual, short, crisp, and cryptic sound bites ).

Should we go Luddite on it? Pack up and go off the grid?

Even nature has its short-fall (or a tree falls). So we bid for time. We do time. Serve time. Scroll the feeds. Waiting for the Uber ride.

Waiting for the last ride, ” a motorized Trinkle between the crematorium curtains”, (courtesy of “Sense of an Ending” by Julian Barnes). Of course, we are entitled to feel morbid. Trees fell. Buildings collapsed (Turkey). And women returned to water haul in Kabul.

The world I have come to know has constantly changed: from one minute to the next e.g. the Challenger burst out in flames on live TV, the burning monk in front of my eyes at the intersection of Le Van Duyet and Phan Dinh Phung, or the planting of “triumphant” SVN flag on top of the Capitol (cathartic Iwo Jima) 2 years ago.

Vietnam, the victor, is meanwhile moving its economy to be more aligned with its nearest neighbor, itself had aligned its economy more toward Capitalism (“black or white cat, as long as it catches the mice”). Meanwhile, the US SOP still very much reflects Fordism after the automobile inventor (“you can buy any model-T you want, as long as it’s black”).

This year is the year of the Cat (Rabbit in China). Yet it seems as if it’s always been the year of the Dog, who wags its tail. A shot was heard over there. A shootdown of a balloon over here. How dare you!

Playbook at the ready. Inventory and supply chain under control. Re-shore chips manufacturing. Recode our IP. Leave the spies in place. The post-war cost-accounting Dept never fully factored in the long-term effect and hidden cost of post-war recovery (humanitarian donation, volunteer hours and labor, time to heal if ever to integrate back into society).

People who are hot-blooded. Trigger happy and wanderlust. Take a hike. Hit the trail. Work it all out of your system. But think hard and twice about the countable and uncountable cost of going to war. Young men/women are thrust into playing God.

Shoot’m (anything that moves). Demonize them. Divinize yourself. Please come back. But never in one piece. And know the place for the first time. And to find out, the enemy is you. This applies to both sides. Since veterans often times turn against themselves when it’s no longer clear-cut who the enemy was.

It takes much longer to rebuild what’s been destroyed. Same with multi-generational hypocrisy e.g. KKK family rituals, embedded in our current culture, where lies get rewarded, and truth sneered (let’s go hunting! oh, here is a jogger, a n***** who doesn’t belong in our neighborhood, a new face sitting on OUR lunch counter).

But then, all on their own (weight of sin) they fall. Rome, Munich, Enron, Ponzi, Madoff…. the list goes on. Yet we still are gullible. Self-delusional and self-deceived. That’s why it takes dying (to bad habits) to live and stay sane in an insane society.

At times, I wish to crawl back into the cave and live off-grid. Off-road, Off social media, and off hearing/reading about people’s parading their supposedly shameful posts shamelessly. Theatre of the absurd. Gong show was recast as fashion show. Criss-crossing and circulating the red carpet, with wrong name tags on their chests. Until, on their own, in front of the mirror, when suddenly they come to know themselves for the first time.

Not yet dead (by a thousand cuts). Not yet been jailed (despite multiple lawsuits).

And not back down (despite death threats and business shut-down threats).

A while ago, I was thinking about female journalists eg. Barbara Walters, etc… who blazed the trail. The ERA struggle back in the ’70s. How women wanted to have it all.

Now, in the person of Maria, I am more convinced of that possibility (for my girls).

My daughters saw a Dad who couldn’t type and couldn’t write (in Journalism 101, I handed in a blank sheet of paper). Only to turn down a broadcast ENG (electronic news gathering) job 4 years later (putting my life on hold for my Mom who had been an orphan since birth).

Back to Maria. Her pointing out technology, social media (harms), and the new politics of divisiveness (algorithm that recommends more “friends of friends”).

I was in the Philippines back in 1983. That year, in Manila, we learned there was an assassination going on at the airport.

I remembered thinking “can’t be” (earlier, it was a Congressman, on a fact-finding tour who got killed in Guyana, a Jim Jones incident). People outside of the Western World think they can just get away with the murder of political opposition (Abe in Japan, for instance). The same with the mass shooting here in the States (6 years old?).

Something about Maria. Princeton, CNN, and Rappler. She does make waves.

From “pajama party” to “Nobel Peace prize winner”. What a journey, despite all the FUD’s (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt).

When I grow up, I want to be like Maria. By that I mean, face the fear. Stand up to bullies. And speak up while growing stronger together.

Maria couldn’t have made it without the help of technology. Without the rise of CNN (imagine her at FOX?).

The fight is still on. Just like the Marcos are still here. Still shopping for shoes in Makati.

Something will never change: they smell your fear. Just remember, they are ONLY THE BULLY.

That’s their lot in life. We should feel sorry for those whose ill fate obviously limits their full potential. Like mine, in the alley, who once beat me up bloody (because I did not stay down), has died of a drug overdose. They get high by intimidating others. Then Noses up, they go in search of the next “fix” (victim). Endorphin factory.

When they run out of “fun”, the urge drives them to fentanyl (fantasies?) or the like.

How to stand up to a dictator? Either wait him/her out. Or keep standing up. If you don’t die by a thousand cuts, you are destined to survive. Even to receive the prize as in Maria’s case, envied by the very bully and dictator she was fighting against. Did the Nobel Prize committee take side? Absolutely. So should we. Unless we want to leave our fate and future in the hands of others’ algorithms or urges.

Something about Maria. About you and me. Deep down. We are entrusted and encoded to expect a world that is fair and nurturing.

Live on in the face of a thousand cuts.

At the end of Steven King’s Shawshank Redemption, we find our character laying on his back saying “I’ll be damn!”. His partner in crime had pulled it off. Not a small feat. Papillon’s worthy. One handful of limestone at a time. Sprinkled around in the yard during break times. Unbroken. Maintain one’s sanity and sense of self.

I have a dream. Well, I had. When I was three. Seeing the adults in my family fought over dinner, watching the flood water rising, and neighborhood thieves chased by my father/protector. I had a dream. That I would never grow up to avert those mishaps. Human hurting human. Nature punishing humans. And family quarrels over meals.

Our larger human family has done just that. Assassination. Revolution. Extermination. Defoliating (“denying the enemy’s sanctuary”). We have gotten good at the art of deceitfulness. First, learn the ABC’s. Then the D’s (deceit, deny, and deflect blames).

I have a dream. For real. Last night. That I finally came with money. And I threw my hands in the air, declaring to those in the room (my classmates, majority of whom have been looking down on me) that we’re all on a flight, mine, to Paris.

That’s a kid’s dream.

Not MLK’s one. His was much grander, more encompassing, and harder to actualize.

Redemption? Not enough. Back in the summer of 86, I went to West Africa. (That put me near the “action” of Apartheid, I naively hoped).

Made some friends. Visited Joe from grad school for instance. And of course, I learned another lesson: it’s possible to live in harmony, outside of the Coca-Cola’s commercial, with folks from multiple nations.

But it takes work. It takes sacrifice and self-examination. For me, redemption is not enough. We need to deconstruct ourselves and our society (larger self), before putting them back (like refracting through a prism).

Why and how did we get to this point? (Judy Woodruff is trying to answer to that). Lack of education (proper one)? Respect? Or it’s self-evident in human nature to associate in groups, then get united by “hating” others.

The answers lie in those in power, wanting to control and leverage their time (short) on Earth to stay on the throne (or keeping it within the bloodline e.g. N Korea).

Zoom out, and we will see the arc of history. It will right itself. And if I still am around to see Paris, I would lay on my back, like the guy in Shawshank Redemption, ” I’ll be damn!”.

Very rarely in one’s lifetime, do we see and honor people like Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela. Beyond their darker skin lays a brighter soul undeterred by outward and unjust treatment.

Everyone has a choice between birth and burial to live a just life. Treat others fairly, the way you would like to be treated. When that’s so, “I’ll be damn”.

Before 1968, all I knew of Tet was new clothes and new outlook. It’s been around like clockwork, with foods, festival and fun. Per legends, 1600 BC, wikipedia has this

“…Tết, whoever could introduce the most delicious dish for the altar would become the next ruler of the country. While other princes tried to find the rare and delicious foods from forest and sea, the eighteenth prince, Lang Liêu, who was the poorest son of the Hùng king, could not afford such luxurious dishes and had to be content with everyday ingredients, such as rice and pork. He created one cake in the square form of earth called bánh chưng and one in the round form of sky called bánh giầy from these simple ingredients. In tasting the dishes offered by his son, the Hùng king found bánh chưng and bánh giầy not only delicious but also a fine representation of the respect for ancestors. Therefore, he decided to cede the throne to Lang Liêu and bánh chưng, bánh giầy became traditional foods during Tết.^[2][3][4] Lang Liêu founded the Seventh Hùng dynasty (c. 1631 – 1432 BC).”

Key words: “content” “respect”… In short, make the best with what you have. Symbolism with substance. Beauty in simplicity.

Thousands-years lineage and code of honor as hallmarks of a nation: respect for the elderly and (soon) for nature (Mother of all).

The three cards monte also looks simple yet takes skills. Like the J6 scheme of selective slate of electors.

From “So Help Me God” by Mike Pence, to Bill Barr’s “One Damn Thing After Another” and Bolton’s “The Room Where It Happened”…Everyone profits. A lot of wheeling and dealing, from Saudi to K Street, Washington D.C. not unlike a “3 cards” monte on our city sidewalk.

When “crooks” are protected or pardoned, they can leverage their positional power. Not for the guys on the street, chased by cops and put behind bars. On PBS, and I quote, they mentioned “the political utility of shamelessness”. (There goes the 4th “S” after Symbolism. Substance and Simplicity.)

We live in a time when we can not afford to call a spade a spade. Santos or other name (s)?

Not without a slant and a spin for future denial ability. All the while we miss the Elephant in the room (where it happened).

Crookedness, white or blue-collar, in the Hall of Congress or at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, is only a matter of degrees. No differences. The lower rung, who, when caught, got sent to jail (without bails).

After 1968, symbolism of Tet shifted. “Tet” in the news, no longer bore any resemblance to my Tet of previous years. It was synonymous to 3,000 buried in Hue mass grave, a failed “uprising” in multiple cities. and a successful anti-war propaganda campaign at Kent State and Jackson State.

People took a symbol, be it a traditional Holiday or a card in the deck, then flip its meaning (one man’s terrorist is another’s patriot, 69 or 96 ? all situational ethics).

Glad to celebrate an evolved Tet this year. My hope is in plain and simple language, people can explain the symbolism and substance of Tet to their kids. Beauty in simplicity. Stay content. Always be respectful and mindful of those on whose shoulders we all stand. Throne or trash, it’s our treasure.

Efficiency, chain of command and hustle. Speed of execution. Climb the ladder. Through smoke. To the top. Only to find out , it’s the wrong building.

Or worse, like in 9/11 situation, the building (obviously with hole punched through by an AA flight) collapsed on you and first responders.

We hate to admit we were heading in the wrong direction. “Well, it’s up, hence must be right”. The natural tendency to deflect, shift blame and delay punishment (it’s the process, it’s unfair).

People who retreated to a different venue – be it monastic or monetary – might not be altogether wrong. They bravely showed us an alternative, a creative and third way e.g. non-violent protest, optimal, suitable. Instead of binary Heaven or Hell, it’s Home.

As a species, we have tried real hard (just to maintain the status quo): we scale, outsource (BPO) , plain old lie (POL) with “new norm” (“team normal” vs “clown car”).

I was struck by a line in the J-6 report. Whereby then Acting AG Rosen “I will not be fired by my subordinate”.

In other words, certain things still intrinsically ring true: decency, honesty and fairness. To many, it’s survival, survival and survival at all costs (have you bought a dozen of eggs lately?).

Life – if modeled after Maslow Scale or the OSI model – lingers at the lowest common denominator: the physical layer (food, clothing and shelter). 98 % of us,

All told, we are to take the self-administered pills. Rest and recover. Then continue the climb, to the next rung: Christmas, New Year and Valentine’s Day. Greetings from Hallmark. From the Vatican. From Kiev. From everywhere, even from Heaven and the Highway leading to it.

The call to recuperate and climb on. Never a call to self-examination or an U-turn. To entertain the possibility that we might have been wrong all along. Instead, we keep on hurrying up, follow the herd, only to find out, it’s the wrong building.

Tactically, we march in the most efficient way (stack formation etc…) or press the pedal to the metal (fuel vehicle or Electric Vehicle). Strategically, it’s a disaster. Slow-boiled effect. Only to wake up and find ourselves in a blunder like Rest of World. Wake up, henchman! At other’s bidding. Been had, Brazilian.

The irony of life is once at the bottom, one can’t be fired by his/her subordinates. Why bother pressing the pedal, Up doesn’t always mean right. Wrong building!

Ishiguro always put his fingers on some pulse. First he was known for “The Remains of the Day”. Then went on with “Never Let Me Go”, followed by “Klara and the Sun”.

He knows how we feel. Claustrophobic. Hemmed in. By the forces beyond our control e.g. industrialization and digitization.

Now with a play adaptation, he re-introduces “Living” to Broadway.

As if we haven’t at all noticed (I drive by a fleet of Amazon trucks every day) the sudden scale-up of what Charlie Chaplin had nailed down in Les Temps Modernes.

The daily chores. Stack-up habits and sudden temptations.

All the while, inflation creeps up (thank you Saudi), population increases (thank you Bill Gates and his vaccine push) and Chinse cheap goods flush the Mall of America.

We know something is missing. We just don’t know what it is, and if IDed, whether or not we can afford the opportunity cost. Papillon knows this well when in solitary confinement. Freedom and the need to be understood.

So Meta and social media know this. Leverage and monetize it. Blog all you want. Read to your delight. But someone needs to collect, deposit and withdraw.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid tried to go “straight”. While discussing an alt lifestyle, they found they couldn’t ranch nor could they farm. Heck, one guy can’t shoot, and the other, swim. Back to robbing banks, with changed venue: Bolivia.

And so it goes. We deserve this sterile life. Albeit large percentage of it were inherited. The rest? blame it on the school system, society and government (many of which rightly deserved for being dysfunctional) and finally, as Ishiguro noticed, the machine.

You and me and the IT ( milo) named Boo. Traveling the land.

Tops down. 101 Hwy summer breeze “makes me feel fine”… We need the “Hug Squad” back on Haight-Ashbury Street. We need to tell each other jokes, between toasts e.g. Woody Allen “I have a brother who thinks he were a chicken”….replies the therapist “why don’t you turn him in?”…”cause I still need the eggs”….

Life as we know it. Part inherited and part invented. It Won’t last forever. The more mistakes, the more misery. On average 76 years span after Covid. No time to drink that beer. Join the AARP. You and me and the IT named Boo. All the unrealized dreams and talks of making it in Australia, as the said pair chatted before going out in a blaze. Freeze frame. To seem to live forever in mid-air, like Cara in Fame. “ I Want to live forever…” “ people knowing my name”.

Our “remains of the day” through a hazy blaze.

Been dry ! In the desert, riding the horse with no name. Some just let go. Never learned. Never changed. Except on New Years. Then, business as usual. Stores Open and Closed i.e. permanently downsized.

However, the longer the wait, the sweeter the result. Like desert bloom. Like maturity and wholeness. Seeing life from both sides. Of course, our outer self is withered while our inner renewed.

Yet we tell ourselves we are looking “fabulous”, younger next year?

For New Year resolution, I learn not to take on additional “blames “(in blame seeking culture). Leaders, be it de Gaulle or de Klerk, paid and promoted, should take responsibilities (for the fall or failure of their regimes.) Most times we would never know e.g. tales of a country collapse. Mine for instance. With babies tossed from Chinooks and caught like basketballs.

Came the cleanup. Came the rescue of refugees. Relief and Cultural Orientation camps. Push/pull forces: Thai pirates’ threats behind, Third-World asylum beyond. Twice, 42 and 40 years ago, I returned to those camps (as of this update, the whole apparatus of USAID was dismantled).

I found myself playing “god’ (culture shock). Flying toward the Sun Icarus-like. Candle burned at both ends (right about now, it feels two flames will soon meet up in the middle). “He who is no fool to lose that which he cannot keep gaining that which he cannot lose.” i.e. made of flesh – college-grad fresh meat – that burn in a flash.

It’s one thing to volunteer: raising money to do good for one summer. It’s another to re-enlist to keep warm a vacated slot (or else the Baptist will take over). More challenging than I had previously thought. CO camp was where folks were supposedly less anxious, knowing a seat on a flight out soon be reserved in their names (with UNHCR hand-carry bags, like the ones we would pick up at “shows” to contain promotional materials).

April 29, 1975 escape, but without “babies like basketballs”: orderly, organized and with orientation. Think Costco shopping: select, carry, load up, transport and lug in the house.

Yet we were 4 adults, 4 kids and one old mom. Later, when the table turned, I became a giver.

Along with UN relief folks, I was often waved through the gate when back on leave. PRPC was a tight run ship of 20,000: controlled and structured. The Philippines made a deal with international VOLAGS: have your personnel and payroll outsourced here. Their track record (Clark Airbase) and proximity to the action won them contracts – for a refugee’s holding center.

A Habitat for Humanity + Guantanamo Bay. Everyone knew it’s transient, like the summer before college. My previous exposure to the Philippines was a 3-day stop at Subic Bay, on-route to Wake Island. But that time, in Bataan, the Baptist just baptized en-mass while the Catholics had their Mass (with Papal visit). Bataan was designed for longer quarantine than my brief stay at Indiantown Gap, PA 8 years previous.

My own refugee processing period was rushing, with weddings conducted daily at Indiantown Gap Chapel, Vegas-shotgun marriages.

Even with empathy and experience, I was ill-prepared (except for being bi-cultural and bi-lingual, with some refugee-work experience). The plus side? International living among expats made my subsequent Cross-Culture coursework a breeze.

Communication was my mainstay. Hence, I found myself speaking, writing, teaching and leading discussions (often I forgot I no longer was at an American campus). Interestingly enough, I found myself a referee among regional factions who, when locked up in confinement often resorted to war 2.0.

In Hong Kong, on my second tour, a vacation-relief assignment, things ended on a sour note: I was falsely accused of “stealing” a gold-engraved Bible. Turned out, I never saw it and hardly read the Bible in Vietnamese to begin with.

Here I was putting myself on loan, at the service of others, riding the ferry, plus boat trips to far-out shut-in camps, with multiple doors slammed behind me on each visit – stomach (Chinese food) churning – holding tight to your day pass (or else easily mistaken for a detainee) while listening to tales of violence and rape – which had occurred the night before…only to get falsely accused in place of thanks.

Not to mention upon repatriation having to wait tables for a few months. On one occasion, unavoidably I was assigned to serve the section where my former film crew ended up seating. “How was humanitarian these days?”

Years later, with humiliation from “humanitarian “behind, I still marvel at the forgiving Father and His unforgiving children. At times, I thought all the wrong in the world, cascading or not, was caused by or somehow implicated me – High Priests of High Church tend to lay colonial guilt on us flocks.

Today, you can hardly find any trace of “white-man burden” in me. All “white-out”, pardon the pun.

Overall, I have had my shares of human misery. Refugee I had been myself, hence am not “rich Christian in the age of hunger.” Of all the (blind) people, few returned to say “Thanks “. I, on the other hand, said twice. From the heart.

Those religious outreach tactically had a trapped audience e.g. cross-shaped burning- brush lit up the hill where spiritual hunger (survival at sea – even on dead- companions’ flesh -would prime and well-oiled you good) would otherwise remain apathetic. As found in the States and Europe, where mainline Protestant denominations experience quite a drought.

At Westmoreland-breakneck pace, baptism was synonymous with Anglicizing. (Certificate of baptism before certificate of citizenship). Wonder how many faithful can withstand materialistic onslaught once settled in the West (It was only fitting the Baptist “mission” was carried out by a former Marine). Numbers game!

Human misery will always be with us. From Hungary to Hong Kong, from Ethiopia to Algeria. Yet we also find beauty in the barren and miracle in the mundane. There must be time (Hologram for a King).

In all its sterility, life has its charm, to serious seekers.

In looking back, I realize despite agonizingly high opportunity cost, I have gained what I was in for (still without knowing the name of the horse on which I rode). Tales by survivors at seas, of rape and rescue, stay with the most hardened of hearts among us. Desert blooms sometimes.

On one of the accounts from a Navy man who worked on USS Kirk during the Frequent Wind evacuation at the end of the Vietnam War (recording to be sent to his wife) “they tossed babies from 25 feet in the air, out of Chinooks, and we caught them like basketballs”.

Meanwhile, per Newsweek piece, last piece on the Fall of Saigon, the writer stayed and boarded next-to-last chopper out of the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon. His fellow passengers, the Lucky Few, were Ambassador Martin’s aide, and his black poodle Nitnoy (per Loren Jenkins’ account).

On the UK chart, we found Bye Bye Baby among the top. Sing on, baby. Fly on down. We’ll catch you.

Get on the plane, the bus, and the ship. We are into hardware transport, not human cargo.

Babies as balls. As political balls, to be punt, fourth down.

Back and forth. Life as a game, Earth our stadium.

Opposing teams, opposing parties. At least, when the Navy men decided to push those choppers to the side (after yanking out headsets and hardware), to make room for the next landing on limited space on ship deck (the sky was dotted with bees-like choppers), the quote was “human is more than hardware”.

In today’s toxic environment, I am not so sure.

Even the Son of Man who shows up today, with “Christ” still in “Christmas”, would definitely be rejected or punt out of state.

Saigon babies are all grown up now. Many have gone on with their Medical careers. Exchange rates help elevate the status of those who fled and flourished.

Those stayed behind, bought new flags and hung up new portraits. Streets got renamed. Statues replaced. Markets meanwhile keep on selling confiscated goods. Hush hush. It’s the US dollars (slightly burned, recovered from oil barrels at the airport and the Embassy), relics of an old-time passing.

If people can revise history on that sad chapter, they can rewrite anything.

Bye bye baby. Bye Bye Basketballs. A view from an US-made Chinook. Catch them if you can.

Aboard a ship or on the bus.

California is where reality meets rhetoric.

A Hail Mary toss of the ball. Quite a pass. A punt. To improve the scores before game over. Except, life is not a game. And human not hardware, as they once said , aboard USS Kirk. Those Lucky Few numbered around 30,000. Could have been transported to the Island of Borneo, to never be seen nor heard again. To never pursue a career in dentistry or medicine. Heck with today’s exchange rates that help their inflated status – to conveniently play both sides of the fence, covering up once painful past: babies as balls in the air.

We’ve seen it: a hero welcome at the heart of Democracy, a damning report about its former Head, and of course, a massive spending to come.

All in one day. Not to mention reduced life expectancy for folks like myself.

Everything accelerates: the pace of spending, inflation and interest rates, climate change and no choices for the poor.

We’re all social media welfare queens. Relying on pushed ads spending to keep each other amused and entertained. At the costs of our time and creativity. All the time curating snippets and nuggets of cute quotes to post. To no avail. To no one.

All the while, where is the human heart? Does it take a non-NATO comedian to remind us of the seriousness of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Out the mouth of babes. Former comedian outlasts former President. What a poetic sense of an ending. TIME magazine Man of the Year. Real vs fake, hero vs coward.

You get the gist. Now, let’s put back the human heart where it belongs (after screwing back the head – on the cover of TIME and elsewhere).

Our human family have been distracted: first by Covid, then by insurrection, then by inflation and war. We’ve forgotten each other and our very selves. TIME missing person of the year has been us all along. Or more rightly, our human heart.

Let’s gift ourselves this season. With real heart, however long it will still work, per latest life expectancy data.

Stay away from overdose. The only overdose we should allow ourselves is overdosing on love. On compassion for the less fortunate and those out in the cold.

It’s one down and a few to go for me (coldest nights). I will survive. I will thrive. I will live. To see the day when the world gets back its heart. It will be a great countdown, louder than Times Square ‘s on New Year’s Eve. Every heartbeat counts.

This year’s Christmas movie on my list is Avatar. The public expects another dose of endorphin. We’re all under the influence. Of times past. Of Christmas past. Times we received loving care and compassion. Give and receive. Gift exchange. Surprised by joy.

We’re more than our mere biological make-ups. Knowing that, let’s put back the heart to human. Not to complete its biological function, albeit utmost necessary. But to make the argument stick: we’re more, much more. Shame that it takes a former comedian to make us cry, right at the heart of Democracy. The same Chamber that the former Head lit the fire, in the hope to see it destroyed on TV.