Thang Nguyen 555

47 years since the beginning of the Fall of South Vietnam, since at least 155,000 rushed out on a 168 km to the seas from high ground. Herded, frustrated, trampled and shot upon, by friendly or unfriendly fires. well-meaning or not.

Major Hy of the fine Rangers was well-meaning. Last sighted standing tall in his Jeep, to get a commander’s view of the situation. Never been heard since. Not a trace. No remains. Rumors have it that he was shot, left to dead along the way during the ensuing chaos.

Central VN evacuees (60,000 never made it) then poured into and through then-Saigon, whose residents themselves (like our family) acted as new blood stream on steroid – which flowed out to the South China Sea, to be enfolded in our unending refugee’s drama.

Present continuous.

No one should wish that on even his/her own worst enemy.

Least was my cousin D, wife of aforementioned Major.

Up until last weekend, she was sill living in hope: that one day they would be re-united. If not in life, then in death. Death came. The major did not.

On my niece’s home now lay two photos, one presumed dead father, and the other, a freshly framed photo of my 88-year-old cousin D.

No closure, no happy ending to “un film de Coppola”, a line in Vietnam, the song.

I was so young when they met and married, had a bunch of fine children, living out a soldier’s wage life, but always with an army-issued Jeep parked out front, his final ride down from Pleiku.

Today, his wife is joining him. Joint lives, yet buried alone. From funeral Service to final resting place. I imagine her saying: “Do I have to do everything” i.e. find out he was really missing or dead.

I once attended a funeral therein Bien Hoa, an hour and a half drive from city centre. I remember the early service (5:30 AM), the oppressive heat and humidity which rises by the hour, the distracting sight and haunting sound of an all-white burial. Draining all the tears and taxing on all those present.

Today, I got a quick facetime to digitally show up . Cousin D, when a young, semi-orphan twin girl, used to hang out with my Dad, her uncle. (My Dad an army vet was flanked by two deceased brothers). In their outing often concluded with last stop at the street game of chance (tai xiu). One night they were left with just enough for two meatless noodle bowls.

Via cousin’s recount, I get to know my father from another angle.

They, My DNAs, and my memory now buried deep six. I hope she is now folded into the loving arms of the Father (her branch of the family all went Catholics).

To run into my father once again. To re-unite with her Ranger MIA husband. To join her twin sister . To be with our larger clan. A clan who was splintered, separated and scattered since the partition of Vietnam.

I remember seeing postcards or photos from the North. With censored caption: So and so just had a baby. A new bride joining us. The post card that had never arrived for my cousin was: “Honey, I am home”.

Nixon managed to have some prisoners’ exchange, the sticky point of the Paris Accord (hence, we’ve got McCain back). I hope my cousin gets a free reunion, without further delay. He is presume- dead. She on the other hand closed out her 47-year long agony, not a minute longer.

What else there is to talk about. War and peace, both at the same time?

Win or lose – irrelevant for the dead.

She is finally laid to rest. This morning. Memorial Day as it happens. Flag half-staff for major’s wife? Perhaps not. How about for him? Who dares to declare the missing dead! On what documentation and whose authority? Hence, in limbo (among 1600 US service men, and 300,000 Vietnamese per 2019 Wagner’s What Remains).

This time and in this case, only a dead widow can unravel the mystery for herself.

The tragedy of a lingering post-war story, the end of that convoy of tears, 47 years on with long tail and still free flow of tears, fresh ones, from many eyes mine included. Well-meaning or not. From Nixon on down (perhaps 99-year-old Kissinger is next up) to Thieu, who had something to do with that convoy. Who will wipe away the tears!

Certainly a convoy could be as long as the road it travels on. And that road is still traveled today by many, minus one: my cousin D whom I love very much.

It was around 1963, since I still remember discussing Kennedy’s assassination with Pierre, my Elementary schoolmate. The alley we moved (up) to saw less flooding and afforded me some playmates, many of whom half-breed (French, not yet American until later years).

I could tag around with an Indian kid (Ali) three doors opposite or play ping-pong with an older Pharmacy student – youngest of his family, hence understood what it’s like to be out of steps like me, also the youngest ( with decades apart from my siblings).

Instant big-brother across the generational gap.

Everyone knew us as a Northern family, bounced around since the partition of Vietnam, until we re-settled, where we could afford (and being closer to our once-ultra rich second grandma; at least, that emotional geography made us feel rooted, now we were only a stone throw from them).

Lover’s quarrels, bully fights, and every imaginable past-times games we could invent: flying self-made kites, talking on telephone made of empty milk cans, and of course, DIY lanterns during the Autumn Festival for Children.

While the war raged on, we kids played on.

It did not occur to me until that next year, when one of our single male neighbors was carried out on a stretcher, that people could just die alone, by suicide, or stroke, not surrounded by loved ones in old age (my grandma) or in war (next door ranger neighbor). Dead-end alley residents were brought together every once in a while, in our shared grief.

For a dozen years living there, I learned one thing: it’s hard to see around the bend. Take your time, slow down. I learned that summer 71 when nursing a broken arm (every kid in my section advanced to Black or Brown belts).

With that setback, I settled for re-learning the guitar. Safer and more fun.

The British Invasion was featured on every issue of Hit Parade, from Love Song to Love is Blue, from The House of Rising Sun, to California Dreaming. Wow! All the leaves are brown? my alley, only cement and rainy season. You’re lucky water did not pour into you living room.

As soon as I opened my eyes after a few rock numbers, kids my age were already suited up in Air Forces and Paratroopers uniforms. 1973-75 the Vietnamization of the Vietnam War. “We want a ride”. Shamelessly.

Death by a thousand cuts.

Death by the seas, in the jungle (when trying to escape re-education camps) and in one occasion (my older blog) a John Doe, homeless Vietnamese in Tustin, California, killed by a random crash onto a Donut shop where he was recharging his phone.

Who do we want to call on our last phone call? the governor for clemency?

Old lovers as Gatsby would? Or your closest sibling, in my case, decades and miles apart.

I still am on the search for that pharmacist neighbor, my ping-pong playmate. He had empathy. He acted on it. He saw death visiting our alley, saw my reaction (baffled and bewildered) e,g, our next-door neighbor came home in a flag-draped casket. They say you often circle back, to where you begin. Perhaps to lay down for a minute.

Life is fleeting. In Uvalde or in the alley.

We need time out for having fun and for human touch. Those values stood the test of time. I started out writing about a death by suicide in the alley. Then I recalled human kindness across the way.

I’d rather spend time, playing ping-pong, volleying it until I drop (while the ball suspends in mid-air), memorializing the intersect of eternity and gravity. Death ends.

Around the bend, it’s hard to see. Yet in my end, my beginning. Some people are glad to have lived at all. Others settled for the 7 notes. I am the one with luck and have lived beyond that dead-end alley still with some lasting memories.

Last week, under doc’s order, I stayed put at home. Self-treatment from a severe case of poison ivy infection.

I watched La Piscine, True Confessions and The Great Gatsby: Alain Delon, Robert DeNiro/Duvall, and Robert Redford. All the leading men.

Handsome and iconic men.

Must be a case of desperate self-projection, since I could hardly bear looking at myself (after a night of toss and turn, itching and scratching).

I imagined myself being loved by Cher (as in Mask) or courted by William Hurt (as in Children of a lesser god).

In short, I turn obstacle into an opportunity for empathy training.

BTW, of late, there have been 100 million folks leaving their homes to seek refuge and safety elsewhere, while 30,000 Ukrainians are returning each day to their wrecked villages after three months away.

Poison ivy perhaps is the least of their concerns.

Baking soda baths, oatmeal baths. Cortisone to Claritin.

Self-treating and sensitive skin. How about a hardened heart? How can one self-treat a heart of winter?.

Out of the three flicks, only True Confessions offered us a realistic ending: a burial plot reserved for its parish priest, albeit disgraced and recycled through the system. Justice and mercy. Meanwhile, Alain Delon got away with his crime of passion (or humiliation), while our war hero, the Great Gatsby, shot and sank to the bottom of the pool (by God, they broke his glasses – at all those parties- and didn’t even send flowers to his funeral).

Life. In all of its ugliness.

Poison Ivy for birds, not human.

Yet it’s human who both blesses and curses his fellow men. Putin survived an assassination attempt. Biden promises off-the-cuff to defend Taiwan and its semi-conductor fabs.

And on and on. Today’s politics grieves me beyond what I currently suffer; it makes my skin crawl. “Poison” Biden said, and now I understood what he meant by calling Theory of Replacement by that.

Summer is arriving. And let me leave you with Gatsby’s last line: ” summer is almost over, makes you feel like grabbing it and pulling it back”. I don’t know about yours but my summer at the beach or by the pool will be fabulous, with baby-lotion and cortisone, sun-tan and sunscreen lotion, just in case.

Once burned twice shy. Just ask residents and shoppers of Buffalo’s Tops’ market. (or as of this edit, another 19 school children did not even live to grab hold of this summer).

On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. Or how your face looks. For this week, I continue to self-project, dreamily onto the silver screen, I step into their roles, live their lives, often times, loneliness while battling their own potion of love (#9), tormented by their own poison and terminated by their own pistol.

Those many faces I mentioned? They are for keeps.

“Life is cheap over there” said someone who were involved in My-Lai massacre, whose anniversary has just come up.

The only person who got a sentence, ended up serving it out of his house. Quite a bargain. Innocent until proven guilty.

All the young lives, and all the counsels (the Best and the Brightest), forever scarred.

We keep ending a broadcast interview on a high note (so as “the word from our sponsors” : soup, soap and cereal – don’t get mixed up with what preceded commercials. )

Or McDonald ads, right after a segment on Ukraine during the Russia invasion.

One man has eaten Big Mac for 50 years straight. That would be 1972 when he first had his first Mc Bite.

A lifetime of burger-eating. A lifetime of watching the news, of spending on groceries and books.

How could life be cheap, here or anywhere?

Kill those “gooks”, “Chinks”

Swamp-ified and dehumanized.

The Chinese Exclusion Act. Bring your strong back, not your spouse.

Build the tracks.

New York City subway. A push, a shot and a massacre.

Life is cheap here too.

One shove down the tracks – steel tracks – still vibrating and handed down since Yellow Peril days – to die by the oncoming train. Black hair, gone and forgotten (face unseen).

When you see someone’s face, look them in the eyes, one can’t do no other but acknowledge that they are fellow sojourners – and appreciate the handywork of God, not to play God.

We’re all survivors, of a confluence of factors.

From a fast-approaching helicopter rotter blade (like me) or hiding inside a Tops’ freezer (as in the case of a young Buffalo cashier).

Still it is a great country. Dreams are made. Fortunes survive.

And despite many bad apples, NYC is still The Big one.

If I can only keep one American character (in a forced choice), I would take, not Mc(Apple)Pie, but that of the uncanny ability to self-re-invent.

Salad bowl or melting pot, that American character of renewing and reinventing stays on.

Anniversary of this, a remembrance of that.

Our routines and rituals define us.

We might have burned many bridges, left behind many bodies…but not that capacity to re-set.

Self-love and pragmatic re-alignment.

Detroit, then overseas and back (Samsung chip factory).

Keep throwing stuff to see what sticks.

In Pennsylvania, in a primary, a hooded shirt and short-cargo pants got nominated.

No sweat. We can handle the truth.

Speak forcefully, forthrightly. Life is short, but not cheap.

Over there, or over here.

Since we re-invent often, to live means to live many lives in one sitting, a buffet of choices for self-development and self-advancement.

Perhaps you might serve others, or you serve God. You’ve got to serve somebody (Dylan). you may call yourself Bobby or call yourself Saul. But in the end, it’s Paul.

St Paul. Master of self-rebranding. Til we have and see faces. The many life times, at times superstitious , other time divine. Out of the Black hole, comes a species, defiant or undefeated.

For some people, their deaths help us live on. My Lai’s, Kent State’s or Kiev’s.

All you have to do is water the plants. Fertilizers, flowers then fading out.

Life is short. But not cheap.

Pollutants kill.

Pandemics kill.

But curtailing Climate Change can save some (not to mention Billions of dollars in GDP).

Curtailing dis and mis-information on vaccines could have averted many deaths (out of the 1 million we have seen so far).

Allow and afford people a back-yard, a hat and a shade as in a Coppola-set to meet their natural-cause death.

Not too much to ask. Human rights? Or Elephant rights (The Bronx zoo).

Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya with food price rising, and causally, death-toll rising.

Preventable deaths of hunger as well, you hear, Putin!

And last but not least, at least 10 preventable Supermarket deaths in Buffalo, NY.

Had young folks gotten the right and not wrong message. Long ago, in Hoosiers, Gene Hackham faked himself into being expelled to give his alcoholic Assistant Coach, Dennis Hopper, a chance at regaining his dignity (and to play his father-role as well).

How about we time-out. Expel the “supremacist” so the “replacement” has their turn at the wheel. It must be tiring and hot inside those “hoods”. Of course, I am referring to the KKK’s, the South and subsequent humid heat.

Oppressive. Misled and uncalled for. Try the Trilogy by Greg Iles to see how frozen in time some regions of the US are still.

Swamp and bubbles, conspiracy and confederacy.

Politicians and priests, farmers and folks. I have always wondered about the ATF (Tobacco and Firearms, or Opioids and AR-15s).

Good people, ill-led. (Without vison, people perish).

Preventable prison-terms and pre-mature deaths.

So much life ahead. To grow, to learn, to give and to serve. Marketers call this customer-life-time values.

Even old folks can serve as advisors and mentors.

To dispense wisdom not folly. To be “replaced” but in the grander scheme, they’re a part of the universe succession plan (David Gergen’s latest book).

To hand the baton, to see this country, the US of A evolves into USA 2.0

We have a tendency to make mountains out of mole hills.

To self-sabotage. But the flip side of the coin, is that there is also greatness, inherent and hidden. A gem awaits to be on display.

Heck, when the streets of San Francisco were not even paved with gold at all, folks were still willing to go West, to dig and to build. The gold is inside, not out.

Perhaps there resides some likeness of the Divine in each of us after all.

“Why are you persecuting me?”. Feel me, see me. Same aggressor then turned poet “Love endures all things”. When I was a kid, I walked and talked like one. Now that the I -the US – am/is older, kinder and gentler, let’s hope we live up to our calling and commitment. No more pre-mature and preventable deaths, for a start. Doable, quite!

On top of the Culture divide, we’ve got the pandemic.

On top of the pandemic, we’ve got the inflation.

On top of the inflation, we’ve got a war in Ukraine (courtesy of Russia and THE Orthodox Church).

On top of the war, we’ve got Climate Change.

On top of the heat, we’ve got…oh well, Friday the 13th.

On top of it, we’ve got Roe 2.0, which circles us back to deeper Culture Divide and upcoming mid-term.

Everything is politicized, from War to Walt Disney, from Orthodoxy to Moron-oxy (my term).

In the 60’s institutions from the Presidency, the Press and the Pentagon ( not Pentacostal which is growing, in South America, along with the Mormons – not the Mennonites) were challenged. Today? It’s the Supreme Court.

Young people, while at it, rebelled against the Barbershop as well. A riot here, a protest there.

Shoot’m. “Why can’t we just shoot’m” (per DoD Chief’s recap).

Today, with digital divide, culture divide and of course, social/economic divide, we face immediate challenges, on a larger scale. Meanwhile, from Murdoch to Musk, the super rich got richer, even Russian Oligarchs after yachts-repossession per sanction (how do they tow those?)

A package of 40 Billion here, a few Trillion there. To prevent Fall surge of the covid variants (in N Korea? S Africa?)

Future earners (today’s students) will get some reprieves from student loan. They can replace us to bankroll Social Security. affect Social change and even agitate (Social unrest) . Hell No, we won’t go.

BTW, I heard the Marcos are back (now that “strong men” States are back in vogue around the world, courtesy of global amnesia – the Hippies are fading and forgetful. What’s going on? Something is happening. What it is, ain’t exactly clear.

But I sense that this summer, with gas price, energy price, pharmaceutical price and food price surge.

We will get slapped with the last straw, be it Roe 2.0, or Omicron (or OMG).

“Why can’t we just shoot’m”.

“No, Mr President, we can’t do that”. “This is the United States of America”, says Number 2 to Dr Evil.

We can’t kill innocent civilians, in the name of God or any other names, Orthodox or unorthodox.

Bible held up high, or under armpits.

Thus far , we have lost 1 million good folks, among them, I am sure, the gene pool could have graced us with another Einstein or Mozart.

What a waste of brain power and man power.

Let’s chant. Let’s dance. Let’s hold hands. While the last straw is coming. I see dead people. There will be blood.

More blood than needed, to bring about change. After all, to stay in place we need to change. Meanwhile, the good died young. Longevity is not in and of itself bad. Desirable even.

Things do come around more than once. And it ain’t pretty. Things like, the politicising of everything (then the monetising of everything else). Grifter 2.0 re-branding.

Amidst a war, there are talks about post-war rebuilding. How about post-waste clean up? So many talks and promises, to curtail and tame the beast. Yet wildfires keep on burning, until there is nothing left. Then we can start clean up and rebuilding. It’s one thing for man to rage – be it M.L. King or Rodney King – it’s quite another for Mother Nature.

I fear it might be the last straw. Let’s hope not. Please, tell me I am wrong. Give those students a chance.

P.S. barely posted this, when I read on the Post that protests are in D.C. and many cities today (Saturday).

….when I find myself in times, of trouble….Who am I going to call? the Ghostbusters?

Mother Mary.

Mother.

Mom (I can’t breathe).

I follow my Mom. You yours.

Heck with the war’s end. Heck with the beginning of a nice media career.

Mom.

Leave no one behind, especially Mom. Yet we did. Out of our depth and despair.

She was left in a refugee camp, all by herself. No sponsorships.

The US government cherry picked those who were able and employable.

My mom? about-to-retire teacher, with some French and written English only.

No way Jose.

Let her stay.

Feed her frozen fishsticks. Cheaper that way from the mess hall.

I was devastating. Did not know what to do.

How to make contact (no phone, no mail).

For a few first months in State College, I was on my own, no parental supervision, no country to feel proud of and no means to stay in touch with the remaining 8 who fled with me to America.

Mom, sorry!

Out of the gate, we were eager beavers, charged like bulls and found immediate low-hanging fruits.

Meanwhile, you prayed. You stayed behind, just as you were in that French boarding school (from Left, her guardian, middle: a cousin who had just had a baby, and my mom, at a vulnerable age).

Mothers breast-fed. Mothers spoon-fed. And Mothers gave to her child his/her snacks, spending money or in my case, fermented rice pudding – take-out from her Temple outings.

My mom often put on Temple-gray uniform and bowed. She prayed for peace, for her parents and sitter, deceased or alive. My mom gave cash to her half-brother, former SVN Navy man on leave. My mom gave me money for my Kung Fu classes, music classes, English classes. In short, her teacher’s salary was always split multiple ways. But first: a full monthly supply of rice staple and fish sauce.

The day we left Vietnam in a hurry, she managed to lug along pictures from the old days, divided up her cash for all children equally (grown up or still young like myself). In all fairness, she exemplified old-school motherhood, albeit semi-orphaned at an early age. What she learned about motherhood, perhaps was mostly from her guardian.

Today, I honor her and her guardian on Mothers’ Day. If it’s not for her guardian and guardrails, we would have grown up without roots (and only parler Francais). Mannerism and maternalism. I owe it to her, to them, to this day.

By reflex, I act out what would otherwise be characterized as a Mama’s boy…”I can’t breathe” etc…I love her to this day and the end of days. When you love someone, you want to please them, alive or dead.

P.S. I said “No” to a job offer by ABC-News affiliate in Scranton. Channel 56. Jay, News Director recruited from NYC, looked at me in total surprises. I did not tell him then. It’s my Mom, in Virginia. With no on to take care of. Can’t leave her by herself twice in a span of 4 years, just because “This Land is a land of opportunities”.

As I now look back, do a SWOT analysis of my choices in life thus far, that “No” was one of the most regrettable choices, yet most honorable one I could ever make. If I don’t give a damn about my Mom, who are you then.

My Mom observed anniversary of her guardian’s death each year. Just as we would hers. How could I miss those lessons in action. When I grow up, I want to be like her, never forgetting those who helped you.

“when I find myself in times of trouble”…

Mother bear waits for her young to catch up – more than often, follow in left-behind tracks. I am sure Mom is pleased to know my heart has always been in the right place, thanks to hers, which was at those same places to begin with.

That’s how we have outsourced-by handing over: our freedom of self-development, socially and cognitively.

“Please think for me” “Please be my stick and carrot” “Please ring the bell so I can salivate”.

Social media took over. We “friended” (or unable to avoid and deny a request) our new judges. Voila!

Life on display.

Morality debated.

Like a line by the Police (the band) ” I will be watching you….every move you make”.

In this case, our rights to privacy: our right to self-understanding at our own pace.

Instead , by “friending” we have allowed others to tell us who we are (or worse off, should be).

When it comes to Life coach, there are plenty.

When it comes to Life rescuing, none (call 911).

We all know this. Yet we are playful…”til the sun comes up on Santa Monica boulevard”.

Lessons learned.

No more living our lives “subject to approval”.

Happiness is waiting for those who have paid “full tuition”

To own one’s mistakes as well as moments.

Samuel Miles would agree “…our own energies..rather than the help or patronage of others”.

In looking back, I realised that it’s not the mistakes we made (who hasn’t), but how we recovered and made teachable lessons out of them (hidden gems). No more blame-seeking and assigning. Use it.

Self-recrimination eats up at joy. In moments of weakness, we silently and subtlely agree with those who wrongly judged us (without context and cause). In short, our lives are an open book, often times, judged by the book cover.

Facebook begins to unbrand itself, morphing into Meta.

It costs more to unbrand. How much more for us to re-invent ourselves, to improvise and improve.

Here is who I am. I can Be no other. Become no other.

The universe in all its mutations and variables, have endowed me (and you and the dog named Boo) with a given set of DNA’s. We are neither dinosaurs (extinct) nor are we helpless machines that can’t feel (or recognise facial features, feelings and compassion).

We feel. We exist. We declare our independence and stake our choice, hopefully on the right side of history.

“I need weapons, not a ride”. Wow! Clear-cut choice. In that short statement, Zelensky let the world know, he is not a subject to approval. Unpopular and suicidal. He surprised even himself. 10 weeks and counting into the war.

We are living in a glass house. Willingly and without being asked, telling others they are the NINE. Please help me decide who I am, give me your like, endorsement and enforcement. I need your opinion to be whole.

I am weak. I am insecure. I cannot function on my own without Meta and Media. Send me money. Send me love. My life is subject to approval. Until then, it’s limbo, like Ukrainian refugees at the Southern Border. Like a frat initiation or Russian recruit. Our need to belong somehow outpaces our authentic stand of the self.

Most of us are mere payload: fill up a gym, an empty seat on the next flight or in my case, the back seat of a speech class at a “cow college” (where football players napped during lectures).

USA Today had a piece on Asian Women in leadership position. Tough road ahead.

Not only they have to face tough odds against them in the boardroom, they were also punched on the street during Covid.

Willing and submissive victims? Easy targets? “Me, no English?”.

Long ago, CBS paired up Dan Rather and Connie Chung. Both have now left the field. Empty seats…not even Wallace, the son, could fill.

It’s Apple, Amazon and Netflix times. The echo chambers. The Q and Z.

(people couldn’t even go beyond just one letter of the alphabet).

The odds are, after Twitter, we will go back to cartoons and drawings.

Some fields are scaled up, others down (the auto-pay system vs mass media).

We will go for days without a genuine human interaction. Kick and punch me please. ( See me…feel me).

At least, it will be human-human instead of just man-machine interaction.

The odds are already stacked against ALL human in general (which will exacerbate the odds against Asian Women). Speak up sis!

From the Tennis booth or from the phone booth.

Out of the many (unchosen) One.

My sister turns 85. Fell, hit a nightstand. Now with eye patch and forever half-blind.

But she has lived a full life: migrant in her youth, law-school degree, Agri-Development Bank, CPA and refugee, whose four accomplished children are commanding top medical pay grade.

Asian American women. First generation. Juggling work, life and new language.

America has benefited from this type of energy (start-up energy) for centuries.

Why stop now? the odds will always be there for new comers and “the Other”.

But the moral arc of history tends to tilt toward goodness and decency.

The human spirit will prevail even at times we feel as if we’re mere payload while in fact, it’s part and parcel of re-work e.g. Seth Godin wrote many books before his first hit – now his net worth is around 50 million.

To fill an empty seat on the plane, to occupy a machine at the gym or dozing off in a near-empty classroom. All necessary, all part of the plan – with “payload” as subset: for us to evolve, to pay our dues to finally rise, reap our rewards and respect we worked so hard for.

The odds are there to hone us, make us better, smarter, stronger, quicker and fitter for the race, which intrinsically, itself is the reward. Imagine yourself blown up at the Boston Marathon some years back, now healed and re-entered the race with one good leg (the other, artificial). Just the act of being alive and thrive should give you thrill.

For my sister, in her last years, it’s to see or not to see. She might once be into numbers at work, but not once did she pay attention to the odds stacked against her. She proved it when we were all urged at her insistence to pack up and leave Saigon in moments notice. For me, it was much easier: I did not have four young kids to feed and fend for. Talking about the odds.

Yet the outcome speaks for itself. I wouldn’t bet against her, even when she faces tough road ahead e.g. dementia and diminished eyes sight. Aren’t we all closing one eye when aiming and focusing on some target? The tougher the terrain, the sweeter the peak.

Messaging.

Optic.

Image.

Perception.

Zelensky, 2-hour briefing. Subway station as set and fatigue T-shirt as prop. Still dignified. Still Head of State, deserving a State visit from America’s Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State (no more T-shirt?).

Either way, I was blogging the other day about Press Briefings on the Rooftop of Rex during the Vietnam War and couldn’t help noticing the contrast (from Television to Twitter).

Unlike Television which demands make-ups, wardrobe, lighting, teleprompter, white-balance, boom mike and floor directing, Twitter just cuts through the chase: “we need weapons”.

The selling of a candidate, from Nixon to Desantis (who pisses off Disney, an image maker himself) is ongoing.

It’s not enough to stay on the right side of History.

You need to “sell” your position, conviction and persuasion, to manage perception.

Rebuilding Ukraine will take years and trillions of dollars.

But an Ukrainian lady expressed her sentiments in a Newshour interview: “we certainly can do it”.

What a marvellous lady! Full of confidence and grace.

We are talking about a nation of grit and determination. No time to die.

It has done some damage (at the tune of 25% of the invading Russian army…an equivalent of decades-long toll in Afghanistan).

I can see in a near future, tanks going back the other way, same way I saw on the news back in the 80’s.

Dien Bien Phu, Saigon Embassy, USSR’s Afghan, US’ Afghan…you name it. A story, war ‘s not excluded, has the beginning, middle and ending.

Unsustainable. Face-saving and self-preserving.

Nations rise and decline..

Whether it’s roof-top briefings or subway station briefing. Ups or downs. Otis elevator or train escalator.

War and Peace. Refugees can’t wait to go home.

If ever (Denial). Life interrupted, re-invented and oh well the “selling” of job candidates.

Resume anybody? Time for our Red Cross to go about: document translation, missing relatives re-united, etc…. Already NGO’s and a host of UNHCR-related hands are busy at work. Rightly so. If not now, when?

History repeats itself. I have seen it with my own eyes. In fact, I have lived it myself. No time for compassion fatigue. No time to die. In fact, it’s time to “dress for success”, at least with 100,000 new comers who will soon be needing a job. It would be doubly hard with foreign-sounding names. Back then, the nation was n’t ready even for a candidate of a different branch of faith despite JFK obvious good looks.