Fred Wilcox - Scorched Earth

Friendship Village, said George, “would be a living symbol of the potential for transformation. And it would show that people can make a difference.”

George Mizo died around the time that the Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s Center for Children’s Health and the Environment released a series of reports on the effects of chemicals like dioxin on young children.

In one article, “Johnny Can’t Read, Sit Still, or Stop Hitting the Neighbor’s Kid. Why?” researchers write:

Studies show that lead, mercury, industrial chemicals, and certain pesticides cross the placenta and enter the brain of the developing fetus where they can cause learning and behavioral disabilities. This is true in young animals—and in young children. 9

Researchers have discovered DDT (long banned in the United States), as well as other toxic chemicals—heptachlor, chlordane, mirex, dieldrin, benzene, and chloroform—in mothers’ milk.

We know that during gestation and in the early months after birth, an infant’s brain is particularly susceptible to harm from toxic chemicals. We don’t know what the minimum safe levels of exposure are. It may be that no exposure is safe…. We know that occupational exposure to PCBs, dioxin, and other POPs has been linked to several cancers and to a broad range of reproductive problems, including birth defects in offspring. 10

At the grand opening of Friendship Village in October 1998, Lt. General Tran Van Quang, the officer who planned and fought in the battle that seriously wounded George Mizo and killed his entire unit, joined Vice President Madam Binh and George in the ribbon-cutting celebration. Through years of planning and trying to raise money for Friendship Village, George and General Quang had become close friends. On October 30, 2000, George Mizo, his wife Rosi Hohn-Mizo, and George Doussin of France were awarded Vietnam’s first ever State Medal of Friendship. After the ceremonies, General Vo Nguyen Giap, senior military commander during the French and American wars, met privately with the recipients. General Giap, a man who’d spent his entire life fighting for Vietnam’s independence, took twelve-year-old Michael Mizo in his arms.

“Michael,” he said. “Never go to war.”

Soon after George Mizo died at his home in the village of Hofen, Germany, on March 18, 2002, his wife and son sent out a message of love for the man who’d devoted his life to helping victims of chemical warfare: “Peace is giving something to life… Your spirit is living in our hearts and in the Vietnam Friendship Village.”

One of the boys in the classroom, a twenty-one-year-old man in a seven-year-old child’s body, picks up a shape, stares at it for a minute, then drops it back into the bowl. Other children stare at the shapes, expecting them, it seems, to come alive.

“Yes,” says their teacher. “Those are puzzles. It’s hard for these children. Sometimes it takes them a year to solve one.”

As our taxi navigates Hanoi’s crowded streets, Brendan and I discuss how we’d like to use his photographs. We do not wish to portray these children as freaks of nature. Nor do we intend to exploit their physical handicaps and mental deficiencies. We have fallen in love with the children at Friendship Village, not out of pity, but because they are beautiful human beings. Chemical warfare has left them with deformities and limited intelligence, but it did not—and cannot—strip them of their humanity.

HANOI, VIETNAM

Another broiling day on the streets of Hanoi: women squatting on the sidewalk, peeling coconuts, cutting up jackfruit, slicing pineapples; early morning clumps of people seated on tiny stools, dipping chopsticks into bowls of noodles; a million motorbikes and taxis honking in a mad, cacophonic, yet somehow orderly rush to reach their destinations. Hanoi, capital of a united Vietnam, city of lakes, pounded for years by waves of fighter planes and B-52s, the resting place of Ho Chi Minh, who lies in a mausoleum guarded by stone-faced Vietnamese soldiers wearing starched white uniforms.

In Hanoi, Water Puppets dressed in bright Vietnamese costumes fight dragons, go fishing, and clash in maritime battles. Beautiful women at outdoor markets sell fresh fruits and vegetables, shrimp, and dog meat. Little stands sell glasses of fresh-squeezed sugar cane juice, and it’s a short cab ride from the old city to Hoalo Prison, a dark, dreary, miserable sprawl of dungeons built by the French in 1896 to hold those Vietnamese accused of resisting colonialism. From August 5, 1964 to March 13, 1973, American fliers shot down over Hanoi and the surrounding regions were held in Hoalo prison, which they jokingly called “the Hanoi Hilton.”

We pass Hoan Kiem Lake, where people of all ages gather at dawn to stroll together, stretch to music, and perform gentle dance routines—each one with its own style. Waving bright red fans, groups of women practice Tai Chi, while other early risers pray or meditate. Residents of Hanoi seem to agree with Ho Chi Minh’s philosophy that exercise is a good means of maintaining physical and mental health.

Legend has it that in the fifteenth century, King Le Loi was boating on this green lake when a great tortoise rose from the water, took a magical sword from the king’s belt, and swam into the depths to return the sword to the Dragon King. A two-story structure with pointed Gothic arches and a tiled cupola appears to float upon the lake. Thap Rua, or Turtle Tower, honors the magic turtle that still guards King Le Loi’s sword. At one point during their sixty-four-year-long occupation of Vietnam, French colonialists placed a model of the Statue of Liberty on top of Turtle Tower. Resistance fighters responded by hoisting the revolutionary flag next to Lady Liberty. When the Tran Trong Kim government assumed control of the city in 1945, the statue came down.

By the time we reach the top of the stairs, we are guzzling water and drowning in sweat. Dr. Prof. Nguyen Trong Nhan greets us with the unassuming courtesy that Vietnamese show visitors. From 1954 until recently, Dr. Nhan was the director at this hospital where he now maintains a two-room office. “Now,” he laughs, “I can try to get something done.”

An assistant brings iced Vietnamese coffee, and we settle into chairs across from a huge mural of the snow-clad Rocky Mountains.

“You see, George H. Bush,” smiles Dr. Nhan, pointing to a photograph in which he stands next to George W. Bush’s father. “And Bill Clinton,” he says, gesturing to a picture of himself and President Clinton. Ho Chi Minh also adorns Dr. Nhan’s walls, but a good distance away from the two American presidents.

In a smaller room piled high with books and papers, there’s a black and white photo of four handsome young men.

“My brothers. I’m on the right. Twenty-three years old, in Division 312, which began and finished the battle of Dienbienphu. Before the battle began, I was sent to study in medical school. At the center, that’s my cousin from Division 308. He died in the battle at Dienbienphu. The center, low, is my young brother from Division 320, and he died in North Delta. He was twenty years old and the doctor of a battalion. On the left, that’s my older brother from Division 308. He died from disease in Hanoi after the victory at Dienbienphu.