VTV1's Talk Vietnam (English) Tonight: Chuck Searcy, Project RENEW, Vietnam UXO Clearance & Victims

VTV1's English-language "Talk Vietnam" program just aired an illuminating episode featuring interviews with the VNBiz mailing list's own Chuck Searcy. 

The episode focused on Chuck's work as Vietnam representative of Project RENEW, a effort to clear UXO (UneXploded Ordinance - bombs!) left in the country and educate Vietnamese about the dangers of UXO.  But there were also several illuminating, even inspiring moments in which the interviewer delved more into Chuck's personal life in Vietnam. 

At one point, Chuck listed some of the "lessons" he'd learned from living here for the last dozen years, including one that could well have benefited the desirable leadership qualities Chuck listed in an earlier post to this list: ie, tolerance.

Overall, the impression of Chuck generated is of a man who's been there and back, learned too much along the way, the hard way, but come out of it all as huge human being, wizened and working well past the point most folks would be packing it in, all to rectify some horrendous mistakes, if not crimes, of his former "superiors", mistakes most others would have let slide as simply not their personal responsibilities.

Spliced into the interview segments were commentary on ongoing tragedies still plaguing Vietnam from the staggering quantities of American War Era (AWE) UXO littered across the country, especially in Quang Tri Province, along with documentary footage of US AWE bombing runs and recent news clips covering the deadly work of today's Vietnamese sappers and the heart-rending injuries and disabilities of ongoing victims of UXO detonations, especially children.

A couple eye-opening bytes Chuck provided (which may or may not have be remembered accurately):

• likely well over 100,000 Vietnamese have been blown to bits or brutally maimed by US AWE UXO since 1975
• the US dropped more bombs than on Quang Tri province alone, an area of just some 100 by 150 kilometers, than were dropped on all of Europe in World War II

Project RENEW is managed by the US Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF).  An overview of the project, fact sheets and newsletters can be obtain from RENEW's project page at the VVMF web site [ http://www.vvmf.org/index.cfm?SectionID=21 ]. 

Excerpted from that page:

For more information about Project RENEW ^TM, please visit www.landmines.org.vn or contact the Memorial Fund at (202) 393-0090 or via email at ProjectRENEW@vvmf.org. To support Project RENEW^TM, visit our Donate page.

While neither the new or old VTV web sites appear to provide schedules or other information about "Talk Vietnam", VTV1 programming schedules listed at http://www.itv.vn/Television/Schedule/ state the next episode of the program is to be aired at 2007.Aug.09.Thu.07h45.ICT.  There's a good chance the interview with Chuck may be re-run at that time.

--
AD (Andi) Marshall
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