U.S. CPI delegation preparing to take off to Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Thai-Burma border

This will be my fourth trip to Southeast Asia with CPI as the
Psychological Advisor. It is my first without going with co-founder Imbert. I will miss his company a lot! We will be going to Vietnam for 12 days and then to Cambodia and the Thai-Burma border for about three days each.

In a few days we take off for Vietnam! My 13 year-old daughter, Natalie will be going for her second year in a row. We will be joined by Clark Slagle, Psychology doctoral student and Tai Kwon Do instructor from Utah, and Skye Fitzgerald, who has studied the landmine issue for a long time, and is finishing his film about the landmine issue in Cambodia, BOMBHUNTERS (www.bombhunters.com), and Patti Duncan a Ph.D. in Asian Women Studies from Oregon.

We have actually never met our fellow travellers, but share the common interest of landmine action. Our goal is to learn as much as we can from the staff, beneficiaries and other professionals we meet and come home and spread the word about these slow weapons of mass destruction.

Every time we go to meet with a beneficiary I always turn to my colleagues and say, "People need to know about this." So, this is my goal: to spread the word about this long-term, chronic effect of war. Peter Davis, director of the great film about the Vietnam-American War, HEARTS & MINDS, says that in the media we rarely see what happens on the other side of the guns. Our Vietnam staff is witnessing the far-reaching effects of the Vietnam-American war every day.

What seems meaningful to the beneficiaries is that we travel from afar and bear witness to their tragedy, which show them that what happened to them matters.
I will never forget when we visited a very young man in the hospital who had both of his hands blown off and his face and chest burned the day before in an uxo accident. He and his young wife were both in shock. We couldn't do anything to change what happened. But the CPI staff, Hugh and Miss Phoung, gave the couple some money to use for food (in Vietnamese hospitals you have to provide your own food) and other necessities. The wife looked incredulous that someone showed up to help. In times of horror and loss these kinds of gestures are very meaningful.
We hope to support the VN office staff in their work and bear witness to the tragic legacy of war that still terrorizes innocent villagers in Vietnam on a regular basis.