Tag: Agent Orange

War’s reluctant start

It’s true a century ago with the assassination of an Austrian baron. It’s true half a century ago with one ( or two) incidents in the Gulf of Tonkin. It’s true this very Labor weekend, even when we all saw photos of little bodies – dead by chemically induced weapon.

Labor Day traditionally meant as a break for the working class (well, somehow it got co-opted by Congressmen and women as well). Sort of poorman’s vacation e.g. kids back to school, mom back to PT work etc…

Who would want to go shoot down somebody. Not a convenient time. Not in everyone’s mind, nor purview.

It might sell some weapons to take down “creative destruction” weaponry. But in this post-Recession era, it is a reluctant call.

There is no rationality to how war started and takes on a life of its own. I have no prejudice against the Syrian people per se.

After all, Steve Jobs, with Syrian DNA, gave us Apple and the I-phone.

It is more convenient if it were the Chinese, whose money we owe, who crossed the red line

War has always been inconvenient. It destroys at many layers and its effects unending (a century ago, it got the US addicted to war as gold treasure ballooned up , hence, war as economic solution – half a century ago, now, the lingering effect of Agent Orange).

So, why bother?

Acts of aggression take place everyday, everywhere.

Some made the news. Many and most don’t.

But I happened to see the photos (just like I did witness the burning monk, the last chopper and Three-Mile-Island up close).

When you are engaged, you are responsible.

This one matters to me.

Some future misuse of chemical weapons will mater to you and your loved ones.

It’s not enough to turn sword into ploughshares.

Or write a letter or a blog.

There are more effective ways to get your point across.

It’s our century’s dilemma: data rich, but determination poor.

We have become of species of special access (broadband for everyone), but not of anger.

We don’t feel. But then, we will regret (for things we did not do).

President Clinton once made a stop in Ireland to seek consultation from a just-dead poet, before facing E European troubles.

This time, Mr Obama might want to seek consultation from Congress-on-vacation (back in ten) and history book.

All Presidents must face crisis and call to war.

It always has a built-in ambivalence and unintended consequences.

Leaders face fear and challenges but go ahead with gut calls.

Or else, we are all managers, tweaking and cooking the books.

Yes. It’s regional and sectarian. It’s even civil war.

But by zooming out, we realize that chemical weapon violation marks a bookend to humanity.

From here on out, either we say No to “chemical addiction” or we end up using it ourselves.

An assassination there, a regional sea brush here. All seemingly regional and reluctant.

But it’s necessary. To stand (not a cowboy stance, in ready gun-draw posture ) and put down our ploughshares to take up the sword.

Learning as motivator

From papyrus to paper, from microfiche to microphone, we use technology for knowledge transfer.

Learning is a great motivator. Once started it never stops (in my death-bed, I probably still ask the attending nurse what all those charts mean, and why not this and that).

Don’t believe in learning curve (as if once you got over it, you own it. There will always be pace learning i.e. know, forget, know again as if for the first time).

Politicians on their first term barely learn how to get back from the underground of the Capitol or stay out of SE part of town (I heard it is now quite gentrified).

Coursera has been a great success. It harnesses technology to extend learning to the mass. Technology as slaves, not masters.

Lift them up, not put them down. I enjoy reading about the Indian IT and call center folks enjoy their night out at a disco, Chinese tourists flocking the streets of Paris or Vietnamese students coming to CAL State. Let them come. With traveling comes learning. With learning people are more open-minded.

Here in Vietnam, cable TV shows Hollywood car chase, guns blazing etc… With exposure  comes the exercise of choices.

Tolstoy doesn’t believe in true freedom of choice (free will vs predestination).

Still, the urge to learn, to discover, to connect and to advance one’s self is innate

The only difference between acquiring information online vs at Ivy League institutions is the socialization of knowledge. Upper-class kids would meet and marry (imperial alliance model) one another, hence perpetuating the ruling class.

But in those far-away lands (Timbuktu), with internet, who can stop a genius from acquiring information about protons, neutrons and electrons. Physics is physics. International grad students might stick out like a sore thumb given their speech and dress code (formal).

I saw kids in the Mekong Delta riding bikes, then crossing a river on ferry to get to school. And that’s on a sunny day. When it rains, I don’t see how they can get to school in dry uniforms (one heart-broken story last year. A boat full of students sunk and students never made it to school).

Learning as motivator.

Then, shoes and broadband. Thomas Friedman, author of the World is Flat, had similar ideas in the NYT today.

Learning as motivator.

The things they carry. Turn those swords into plowshares.

Angel of Death into Angel of Learning, Agent Orange into Agent of Change.

Broadband for rural, broadband against ruin.

Nobody can stop a man from learning. Not even in the confine of a prison.

Senator McCain was detained for a while in Hanoi Hilton. He now sits on Senate committees. Tell me he did not learn a thing or two while being detained.

Learning takes many forms and takes place when least  expected (even from the bottom).

To learn one must first be humble and teachable. One must be motivated even on a ferry-boat or one’s death-bed.

Reflections of my life

” I am changing everything” …Like Holden Caulfield, catcher in the Rye.

“Oh I don’t want to die..”. The future that I once fret is my current present.

“All my sorrows”….were for nothing. They said 90% of our worries didn’t materialize.  Yet we keep worrying. Like a plague. Dec 21st or 23rd (Mayan Calendar).

Just shop til we drop ( even right after 9/11).

The world is, a bad place, a terrible place to live (lyrics).

The hardest part is to face and live with one’s self.

Tend not to those urges ( self-sabotage and self-destruction.)

Who planted them there? Those seeds? So the Earth would be less populated?

Take me back, to my own home (Lyrics).

Those GI‘s who listened to this song from a transistor radio, deep in the thick jungle of Vietnam. Have they often reflected on that experience? The Amerasian children they left behind? The bodies and chemical agents?

Who won that war? Or any war for that matter!

Perhaps both sides have lost.

Lives destroyed, and environment contaminated .

Bombs and napalms have fallen here when “Reflections of My Life” was at the top of the chart.

A generation of young people were forced to grow up really fast, to reflect on death and dying, to ask hard questions.

All my crying (lyrics)

It hurts to face separation, from neighbors and friends. The comfort zone.

Gone forever. Like a movie reel that got torn at one of the splices.

Tran Hung Dao, the Sea General, was back to sea (his imprint was on the then currency). Dust comes to dust.

In Vietnam, it’s considered “luck” to run into a funeral, not a wedding.

Yet, with Christmas season in tow, I saw 2 weddings this morning.

It’s peace-time Vietnam. The Wedding Hall is named “FOREVER“.

More optimistic in outlook now.

Fewer funerals, more weddings.

Less “reflections  of my life”, and more “accumulation of stuff”.

One thing is missing here: Black Friday shopping. That was because, American landed here back in 1965, Pleiku and not Plymouth. Hence  there was no Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. No turkey dinner. Just another weekend of laundry, coffee and a rare treat from the band. You can guess what they played here.

Yes, Reflections of My Life.  Take me to my own home (lyrics). Holden Caulfield got expelled from school. Not wanting to go back home just yet. Just ride the rail, the taxi, and anything that moves, with no particular stop in mind. The journey is the reward.

Ennobling

You don’t have to be rich or poor.  Nobility is a choice.

A willful act of service. A realization that your words, which might injure someone, be best left unsaid.

WWII servicemen, having seen and heard all there was to be experienced, have put themselves through school (GI Bills) and affected the change we see today in America.

Ennobled, encouraged and emboldened.

The next generation saw the Fall of Saigon. This time, servicemen and women got jeered at upon returning home.

How long will it take to right the wrong? Agent Orange and secret agent.

No safety net for people whose call of duty is to protect others’ safety.

But if they did volunteer and serve out of noble causes and conviction, they will rise again.

The Phoenix indeed does rise from the burning ashes.

And so it goes.

Yesterday’s gone. Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.

Rich or poor, gay or straight, nothing can stop you from being ennobled.

It’s a choice, not a birth right, unlike the European feudal system which is passe.

It’s time  to arm oneself with the best of knowledge (coursera) and connection (social media) to affect change.

Get out and vote. Get up and be ennobled. I am sick of having a dream. The journey of a thousand miles does begin with that single first baby step. Deal with innertia and get off that couch! Just Do It!

Ma Belle

She hit all the right notes. Struck the chords. Evoked the emotion.

Great speech arouses.

Got the audience on their feet.

They were waiting to hear, not for a hand-out but for a herald.

Together we can.

But the disconnect is when it comes to action: People simply don’t believe either side i.e. the propaganda, the politics and the promises.

But if everyone elects not to vote, the problems won’t go away. Collective denial.

Suicide.

The take-away, and there are many, from Michelle O’s speech was that she is a concerned mom, just like everyone else.

Down to earth, homie and honest.

Just need a chance.

A shot at the dream, and not a shot in the dark.

An opportunity to work, to materialize the dream.

America has been about hardware (military and moral righteousness). Now it needs to be nimble, to focus on its strength: software, education and not entitlement, creativity and not exclusivity, competitiveness but not isolation.

Soft power.

After all, it has learned hard lessons from relying on hardware and hard numbers alone (ironically, there is a piece  about Hubbard Sciences attempt to cure Agent Orange victims in Hanoi . Twice the wrongs won’t make one right).

We keep exporting the worst (sex and violence in films), while suppressing the best (foreign language and art programs).

(Apple’s late CEO – Steve Jobs – said he honestly could not find enough qualified engineers to produce the I-phones in the US).

Go figure.

Back to our Mom-in-Chief.

From the standpoint of a delayed-broadcast viewer, I am still at a loss about our complacency: we can now view broadcast from any laptop, at any time, anywhere.

We live in a time when Presidents can tweet. And we can too. From the People, by the People.

Yet we are out of touch, not because of lacking in ways but in will (courtesy of Lloyd Tran of the Cleantech Institute).

Kids will take charge. They will look back at this generation as the “transitional” one (from go go to so-so times).

Though we will not be remembered as the Greatest Generation, at least, depends on how we act,  as the Survivors Generation. The phasing out of the Old Order (Post Office, hard-back books, Internal Combustion Engines, polluted nation, homeless nation etc…) to the new (4-hour work week, EV nation, Virtual  Leader of the World.) Be all you can be America. Keep the Dream alive and attractive, still. The whole world is watching, not just the speech, but the story, to see how the narrative unfolds. Empires have all gone down this path, with beginning, middle and ending.

Let’s hope we can stretch our plot  a while longer. Keep them guessing. Hint: share the software and start the chain of goodwill effects.

Twice, it’s alright

I did everything twice. It’s become a pattern. It’s become a pattern,

6th grade found me fumble from a French-system to then Vietnamese system, so I ended up repeating my 6th grade at two different Middle Schools.

Then, my freshman year got interrupted (by the White Christmas song that was played on US Arms Force radio, the same one that gave us Robin William’s impression “Goooood Morning,Vietnam”) so I floated on barge, navy ship, C-10 cargo plane, then 747 to Pennsylvania to start college again. This time, from the Vietnamese system to its American counterpart (with the help of Red Cross translation services which provided notary public among other relief packages such as toothbrush and underwear). Twice a freshman.

Plug-in: let’s give via Red Cross to the victims of Japanese earthquake.

Back to twice, it’s alright.

Every person’s history is a miniaturized version of his/her larger historical context. In my case, it was a transition from the French-colonial education system, to a more modernized approach (I even took a SAT, the nation’s first, using number 2 pencil for computerized grading). Ironically, when people discuss the efficacy of NATO’s involvement in Libya, Vietnam’s quagmire was once again mentioned. To put some meat into the analogy, we are referring to 3+ million deaths in that conflict, and an aftermath of Agent Orange, PTDS etc…Talking about “Reflections of My Life” (view the Youtube version which features the kids running toward a returning vet).

Others might have it easy (playing tennis on Guam Island in transit). But for me, I had to do things twice at school and in life.

Years later, I met one of my sales agents who had stayed behind in the camp until he got kicked out.

He certainly took the easy way out. To him, it’s always once, the last option that is (like the default choice that software engineer often recommends).

Although my life-changing event happened a life time ago, but to me, it still resonates (still raw, like “the first time, I ever saw your face”.)

I want to silently thank those who lost their lives and limbs, while reflecting on my lost years.

In comparison, my lost college year was a very low a price to pay. BTW, I had to search twice for my SAT IBM-spit out scores (turned out that some of the exams had to be graded manually due to a computer break-down. My grades came in on the second batch, a few days later). So much for the angst of pencil number 2  for the machine to read. Later, to satisfy my penchant for “twice in everything”, I went overseas twice to volunteer for Relief Work (reciprocity and pay it forward), two graduate schools and won two cars at MCI to pay off my school loan.

Twice, it’s alright.

Time to change

Change bears a different connotation to different people.

In the 60’s, change threatened the status quo (Hell No, we won’t go).

It’s inevitable that we need to adapt (from jukebox to boombox, from paper-back book to e-book).  A few years from now, we would rather be dead than getting caught carrying  a hard-back book (today’s equivalence of carrying a brick phone w/pull-out antenna).

In fact, leadership is all about change management: take R or L at the fork in the road (yahoo)

take both (Cisco), or take the one less traveled (Robert Frost).

Change has been equated with letting go. But it’s not. It’s being adaptive and relevant.

Downgrading, downshifting, downsizing and retrenching.

The exact reversal of the 80’s “trading up”.

In the Hummer and the Mini, the author tries to point out the paradox in taste and style. At the present time, we might have to do away with Hummers altogether

(have you noticed gas prices lately).

And there is forced change e.g. aging, empty nesting or season change whose cold front disrupts our holiday travel. Here in Florida, they use helicopters to bring down warmer temperature to protect crops (same technology was used during the Vietnam War to spray Agent Orange to destroy crops).

The positive side of aging is maturity. Having been there and done that, one detects a familiar pattern (deja vu) and can easily connect the dots (for instance, Haiti and Vietnam both had some French influence. This makes easy for the Vietel engineers to connect with locals while trying to rebuild Haitian telecom infrastructure.)

Unfortunately, the path of least resistance is often the path most taken. It saves time when everything is in place, the same place (efficiency model). Have you noticed that as creatures of habits, we always congregate around the fire-place (or TV, its modern-day replacement) and water cooler at work (or the conference-room speaker phone). But that’s our pre-Google false sense of comfort.

Now that the transformation to digital is almost complete, we must embrace minimalist life style (watch out Good Will and Salvation Army, you will have to expand your warehouses).  Digital natives will not give a second thought (since they are not attached to things non-digital) before junking that jukebox or that Polaroid.

We are change managers. And managers must decide what’s important and what’s urgent, what stays and what goes. Most importantly, from future vantage point looking back, will today’s decision hold? Are we being self-disruptive enough or face forced change?

The more we want to stay the same, the more we will have to change. Or just sit there and get run over by the train.

And that time is now.

Forgetfulness is necessary

In clinical terms: selective memory.

Speak ill not of the dead, for instance.

Auto-biography is another version of selective memory (before actual amnesia).

For me, to see Dow Chemical opens a polymer and acrylic factory in Vietnam, roughly 40 years after Agent Orange got sprayed over the same landscape, is a great example of collective amnesia. Vietnam must be a very forgetful country, or a forgiving and pragmatic one.

Intel, Samsung, Canon all set up shop there. These names are not attached to any controversy we know of.

IBM and Coke got their own black eyes in the past.

But one must move on, travel the globe to seek bed partners never thought possible 40 years ago (I may have repeated what Secretary of State Clinton said in her recent remarks about Vietnam).

The President is in India. I thought I saw in passing his test-driving a nano car.

(In an ironic twist, he is a de facto CEO of GM, checking out a foreign competitor, in this case, Tata).

After India, whose stroke of luck continues after Y2K, the President will take a walk on memory lane: Indonesia, home of volcano and the largest Muslim population on Earth.

One cannot schedule a better get-away from gridlock than this. While things seem to jam up over here, everything explodes over there.

I alluded yesterday about how long it took Detroit to build smaller cars (began with Pinto) . And now, Harley Davidson has made-in-USA parts assembled in India (that way, the nouveaux riche in India and China can join in the chorus of “Born to be wild”. It’s expensive to be wild!

The pendulum finally swings to the opposite : “Small is beautiful” is adopted here in Detroit, and Harley in Mumbai.

“I want to hold your hand”, the Beatles sing. They went to India 40 years ago for R&R. Now the seeds finally took hold here in the West. This time, albeit not reversing “the British invasion“, off shoring to a former British colony via broadband links and Harley parts (tattoo stickers not included).

I wish I can be forgetful on demand. The time calls for it: a healthy dose of amnesia. No context, no frame of reference. Just do it. Do not think too hard and too much. Go with the flow (of information and money).

 

If this were my last day

I would hold the door for the person behind me as always.

I would call people whom I have avoided and face those dark alleys once petrified.

I would lay down my guards, strip off my veneers, and empathize with others.

I would clean up my desk, make my bed and re-arrange my shoes. One movie touched on this subject, whereby our cancer-contracted heroine went out and charged for her Manhattan flat, ordered in electric guitar and decided to live a life she had always wanted. Another movie, called “A Single Man“. Once his partner was dead, the main character tried his hand at suicide. But he was anal when it comes to being spotless.  This helped thwarting his plan: he tried to put the gun in his mouth, imagine  blood splat on the wall and bed sheet.

He even tried to slip inside a sleeping bag to avoid leaving behind a mess.

Last day or first day, we are creatures of habits.

Doing the same thing and hoping for a different result (like squeezing the toothpaste the same way, hoping for magic).

At the end of the movie, our “single man” said he had a moment of clarity.

We can see things as they are ironically in hindsight more than in foresight.

George Harrison put it in “While my guitar gently weeps” that “with every mistake, we will sure be learning”.

Enlisting death to live better sounds like a poor strategy, but

pre-mortem works better than post-mortem. Begin with the end in mind.Those of us who have been 7-habit practitioners know this all too well (BTW Steven Covey, the author, did leave a good legacy as a Master trainer of human potential).

So, if this were my last day, I would live fearlessly, unleashing and emptying my reserves.

And perhaps there comes a moment of clarity: seeing myself and understanding myself as others have seen it all along.

I would forgive both friends and enemies: friends, for not being true, and enemies, for being so true. You see, life comes as a package.

And up to us, to make order out of chaos, to find beauty in the beast: a single mom struggles to raise a deformed child while juggling another ball in the air (aging parent), the damn residue of Agent Orange or the Anniversary of Nagasaki. Chemical companies and cleaning products, weapon merchants and nutrition vendors, fast food and slow growth, mortgage lending and housing bubble. What do they took us for? The already-dead? Even if we sit still, practicing yoga or eating yogurt, the aging process is taking place, regardless.

I now understand that less is more. Live simply, and die tidily.

And if it’s the end, then, it’ s actually the beginning (T.S. Elliot).

Many people actually become influential more in death than in life (Van Gogh, Proust).

So if this were my last day, I would still be eager to see what’s next, invent and open to possibilities. And if I lived tidily, I would leave behind only few loose ends.

Oh, and I would say thank-you to the many whose help I couldn’t do without.

Like a book’s acknowledgment section, my list is long, but I know I am bound to leave out someone. That’s the part I need to work on right till the end, where the book closes. For now, it’s still an open one, full of surprises at every turn. No, it’s not my last day. I’ve only just begun, with the weight of death fully accounted for and acknowledged.

He who knows the why can endure the how.