by Namaya 5 Jan 2020 I am the Vietnam Generation: Generation of Witness: Can we be the Generation of Contrition?   1. Prelude: Rage! Sing the rage for the innocents. Rage! Sing the rage, and call for atonement. As rage dissolve to contrition and lead us home to love. The Dharma is not war, it is the journey home to love. Dharmapada, the path to true Dharma, to give to surrender to love. 2. Shroud of War: Invocation I do not want to be called a Baby Boomer. I am the Vietnam generation I am the generation of witness and fire. I was a hospital corpsman during the war and though far from combat, the war haunts my generation and its veterans. This war of decades ago and the ongoing wars of the Military-Industrial machine, shrouds my waking hours. Vietnam: Fire. Redemption. Love   I am the Vietnam Generation. I hold the memory of two million Vietnamese children, men, and women killed during the War of Liberation. I hold the memory of the 58,229 dead American and the 55,000 French soldiers killed. Not killed for patriotism. Not killed to save a nation. Killed for the Military-Industrial insanity. millions of wounded soldiers and children maimed with bombs and Agent Orange. How has the USA paid recompense for the 400,000 Vietnamese killed by the poison Agent Orange? How have we remediated the land destroyed by bombs and Agent Orange?   How have we paid for these killings?   How many generations will it take to heal this land? Can this land every recover?   Is there a salve that can soothe the scars of Napalm bombs? Is there a salve that will heal the skin of those burned with phosphorous?   How do we Americans care for the thousands of deformed children born today? When will there be contrition? How have we atoned for our deeds? How will we atone for My Lai and the unknown massacres?   How will we care for the people and land destroyed by the sin and evil of war?   While the chairman of Dow Chemical Carl A. Gerstacker played golf on immaculate green lawns.   While Dow Chemical’s Napalm incinerated Vietnam and burned people alive.   While Monsanto gained fortunes for its stockholders with the poison Agent Orange.   While the war profiteers made their poisons and guns to destroy Vietnam, and heralded the greatness of the USA.   While Nixon scuttled a peace deal in 1968 so he could get elected. While McNamara formulated the calculus of war. While Johnson, Kennedy, Kissinger and all stoked the machine of war. They were the architects of monumental hubris.   While those ensconced in draft deferments, protested the war. While the poor and working-class soldiers were sucked into the vortex of conscription.   I want to hold the hundreds of thousands of wounded and homeless veterans. These same veterans now huddled in the streets shivering cold throughout the USA.   I don’t want us known as The Woodstock generation Of the ephemera of peace and love. I want us to hold in our bones the imperative of peace and contrition.   Do we have the courage to bend down on our knees in supplication?   3.  Noble Saints of Peace   And to you the noble saints of peace, who came to Vietnam and cared for the children. To the warriors of the higher conscience, who refused to march off to war. To the soldiers who returned and now are working for justice in Vietnam. To those who chose prison over war. To those who fled family and home to protest. The courageous monks were driven mad with pain, burned themselves alive to protest war. The students at Kent State shot dead by soldiers while they protested against war. Your acts of resistance and love shines through the dark with fearless courage. 4.  Witness: Cambodia This year, I journeyed to Cambodia, where the genocide and killing fields were fostered by the American war machine. Twenty-five percent of Cambodians killed. The soul of a nation shredded by genocide. Children born after the Americans went safely  home are still maimed and killed by landmines. Children in wheel-chairs are begging. Eyes famished for hope and ask us, “Please, help.”   Where is our contrition? How is their forgiveness? Where is our mercy and justice?   The killing fields and landmines are underfoot as I walk through the Mekong. Some paths have been cleared, but much of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam are littered with landmines and Agent Orange. Landmines dropped by American war planes in a rain of evil, blacker than evil itself. Where is the shame That should burn in our soul? Where is the repentance? Where is the contrition? How have we healed the wounds? Where is our courage to end war? 5,  Laos  Beautiful innocent Laos. Nestled in the mountains, ancient Buddhist land, now infested with land mines that destroy and maim children decades after the war.   More bombs were dropped on Laos than in all of WWII.   Today, I walk through the fields. Our guides point us to the right path, but there are no signs, no guideposts to the landmines strewn by the Americans.   The US Military indiscriminately bombed and poisoned Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.   Today, I meet children at the hospital, their legs destroyed, some with faces shattered, their bodies and souls nearly destroyed from cluster bombs dropped near fifty years ago. How do we begin contrition? How are we humbled and shamed by our deeds? When will we bend to our knees to ask forgiveness?   6.  The US Military Industrial Machine   We, the Vietnam generation, have we grown complacent waddling to retirement and investing in the war machine?   Panama, Grenada, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the necklace of our war machine is made from the skulls of children.   We have raped, ravaged and looted countries around the globe.   Our trillion dollar platinum plated