A Life in Dark Places by Paul J. Giannone

Author:Paul J. Giannone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: refugee;relief;CDC;CARE;boat people;Vietnam;Army;medic;Hoi An;MAC/V;Fire in the Lake;Frances FitzGerald;ARVN;USAID;An Duong;Iran;Ahwaz;Hue;Da Nang;Turkey;Tehran;Indochinese;Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act;Indochina;Cap Anamur;Khartoum;Sudan;Bangkok;NGO;cholera;Sudan;UNHCR;Camp Hope;Albania;Kosovo Liberation Army;Kosovo;NATO;Serbia;Gypsy;Pakistan;Taliban;Angola
Publisher: Torchflame Books
Published: 2019-03-04T16:00:00+00:00

Land of the Big PX

The suffering of the boat people is an outrage to our common humanity and an offense to all Christians. But we do not live in a simple world, and subtle political implications follow every benevolent act by religious people. This should not stop them from acting, but it should make them more sensitive to the political realities of the world which they serve.

—Michael Lee,

The Christian Century

Father and child refugee on board Cap Anamour German rescue ship.

I was under verbal attack.

“Can you tell me just what is so wrong with resettling Indochinese refugees into America?” Chad Bennett almost shouted. “You, of all people. You’re a Vietnam veteran and Director of Refugee Screening Operations here. The Vietnamese make good citizens. They’re hard-working. The majority have been very honest and successful in America.”

Chad36 stopped and gulped a breath of air as he stood on the other side of my desk. A look of puzzled frustration creased his features. I had gotten under his skin again.

I actually liked getting under his skin. We had just left a daily meeting for senior staff from both the Indonesian and Singaporean U.S. refugee programs. I had made a joke about the “Unaccompanied Minors Program37,” suggesting that “minors” should be spelled “miners,” inasmuch as the ones trying to tunnel into America via this program were too old to be spelled the other way.

Chad was a few years younger than I, and had been active in the anti-war movement in college in the early seventies. With Chad, I suspected, resettling refugees was more fad than conviction, though that did not bother me. What got to me was what Chad represented.

As with the young consular officer in Ahwaz, Iran, Chad embodied the new youthful self-centered American. The “ME” generation. Toward the end of the 1970s, he had become a Republican because, as he told me, “it was better for my career.”

He had been staunchly opposed to the draft. Let the poor and the minorities don the uniforms, carry the guns, and take the risks. He had better things to do in life. Chad’s involvement in the refugee program was partly because of career considerations and partly because it was the “in” thing to do that year. I knew that inside he felt that “we,” the Vietnam veterans, had messed up Southeast Asia and now his new generation, with their progressive thinking, was on hand to fix things. Chad bent over my desk, placing his palms flat on the cool air-conditioned glass, waiting for a response. Moisture outlined the images of his warm hands.

In a way, I wanted to agree with him. I loved the Vietnamese people. Granting entrance to America and the possibility of American citizenship to any Vietnamese requesting would be the easiest way to proceed. To me it was a painful internal struggle between what the heart wanted to do and the cold hard reality of what was right.

Our government wanted us to believe that while we failed to defeat the communists in Vietnam,

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