MISSION:POSSIBLE An American delegation returns to Viet Nam in search of peace and reconciliation thirteen years after the war { John Schuchardt’s Journal | kept during the November 1988 delegation to Viet Nam with George Mizo and Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhists ON THE COVER: Delegation members pose together on an old U.S. tank near Cu Chi Tunnels. From left to right: Venerable Higai, Venerable Gyoway Kato, John Schuchardt, Nguyen Binh Hai (translator), George Mizo, Sister Clare Carter. Ven. Kato and Sr. Clare are from the New England Peace Pagoda. MISSION:POSSIBLE An American delegation returns to Viet Nam in search of peace and reconciliation thirteen years after the war { John Schuchardt’s Journal | kept during the November 1988 delegation to Viet Nam with George Mizo and Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhists The New England Peace Pagoda in Leverett, Massachusetts was inaugurated in October 1985 “as a visible form of prayer for inseparable peace in the world and within the minds of all humanity,” by the Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist Order, which is actively engaged in promoting peace and non-violence throughout the world. The New England Peace Pagoda was the first to be erected in North America. You, my parents, taught me that it was wrong to kill …except in war. You, my church, taught me that it was wrong to kill …except in war. You, my teachers, taught me that it was wrong to kill …except in war. You, my government, taught me that it was wrong to kill …except in war. Then you sent me to war, and when I had no choice…except to kill, Then you told me I was wrong! And now I will tell you …my parents …my church …my teachers …my government It is not wrong to kill…except in war. It is wrong to kill period! And this you have to learn… Just as I had to! —George Mizo, 1967-68 2 SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6 JFK Airport aboard Northwest Orient #17 to Tokyo. Sister Beth drove Sister Clare and George Mizo down to Madison last night, arriving about 9:15p.m. for our 7 p.m. supper together with Bob Jennings and Dar. George had flown in from Germany to Boston on Friday, less than three weeks after triple bypass heart surgery. George’s son Michael Francis was born on Ada’s anniversary, Aug. 12th. I donated Ada’s car to the New England Peace Pagoda when she was killed by automobile on August 12, 1987. Her new VW is now being used to start us all on this momentous trip to Viet Nam. Michael Francis Drumming visited us yesterday. His birthday is Aug. 9th. I need to ask him in whose name he acted at the New Haven Recruiting Center during the Veterans Fast for Life on St. Francis’ birthday 1986—George’s? It happens that George reenlisted for service in Viet Nam at the New Haven Recruiting Center in 1967. It rained yesterday, windy and stormy, the air moist, gentle, maternal. Today bright and clear, very mild. I asked George about the death in Viet Nam of Rita Clark’s husband. Rita is the sister of Fr. Miguel D’Escoto who helped our delegation with George, Brian Willson, and Duncan Murphy to Nicaragua in 1986 following the 47-day water-only Veterans Fast for Life on the steps of the Capitol. Rita’s husband was shot in the head while reaching out of a helicopter to pull in a wounded soldier. George says more U.S. diplomatic officials have been killed in the past 10-15 years than high-ranking officers were killed in Viet Nam. I am somewhat faint and also numb at the prospect of going to Viet Nam…such a powerful psychic reality for so long—a word heard and spoken countless times since about 1960. I recall Kennedy on the radio in my dorm at Swarthmore College making it sound as 3 though war with Laos was imminent. And then Senator Wayne Morse speaking at the University of Chicago to a huge audience with the hall full of press and TV and not one word of his speech reported in the Chicago newspapers, in 1965 probably after he had refused to sign The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Then Marine Corps training at Quantico when everyone was given a six-month emergency extension and I submitted my resignation saying I believe in killing in self-defense but did not believe the U.S. was engaged in self-defense. Then the family years in Vermont, working for The Experiment. One of our secretaries’ husbands was killed in Viet Nam; news reports. I didn’t follow events closely. But it was impossible to avoid the Body Count given with the daily news or the voice of Lyndon Johnson, then Nixon. It has been in the past thirteen years through the peace movement and long talks with Viet Nam veterans in prison that I have begun to learn the magnitude, and been able to reintegrate my own personal experiences, remember and relearn about the War Against Indochina. But I never expected or planned to go in the flesh to Viet Nam. Thirteen-and-a-quarter hours to Tokyo. George’s father was a Blackfoot of the Sioux Nation, mother English. Both parents now dead. He enlisted September 1963, re-enlisted in January 1967 with the single condition that he be assigned to Viet Nam. Three days later he was in country. One- year tour. Returning, as head of the Officers Club at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey he resigned and said he would never again perform the duties of a soldier. He heard Martin Luther King Jr. speak in Washington, D.C. Got involved in Viet Nam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), Dewey Canyon III, demonstrations. Three months in the stockade pre-trial and six month’s sentence, 1969–70. George 4 says the stockades were full and there were serious rebellions in several. Military did not know what to do with him. Stockades were full and so he was released, lived on his own in New York City where he knew Dan and Phil Berrigan, met Theresa Fitzgibbons, worked with runaway children. Looking out the windows above Canada/Alaska—Clouds, sky, mountains seen from far above revealing the infinite patterns of folds, ridgelines, peaks and outline. Fabulous rivers winding through forests, Snow over all, rivers frozen except the smaller ones. Straight roads cutting through, dividing huge tracts into surveyed squares, in unnatural contrast to the harmonious infinite irregularities of slopes, valleys, and peaks all a cast of subdued light emanating from sun, snow, ice and shadow. Then no roads, no divisions by survey, all irregular patterns and outlines hiding the mystery of creation and of the Creator. George says a lot is happening to him, having just re-read Martin Luther King Jr.’s two speeches on Viet Nam. He asks Sister Clare for a notebook to write. He says he feels the way he always does when he knows he is in the right place doing the right thing. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8 A good night’s rest, after a cold shower. Now we are at the Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam filling out forms. On the ride over by three-wheel taxi, George says he saw many of these taxis driven off the road and into rivers and many people killed in Viet Nam by U.S. convoys which were under orders not to slow down or stop. At breakfast he said he began having doubts when he was part of the first major offensive north of Saigon into the Iron Triangle to “liberate” French-owned rubber plantations and Esso and Shell 5 refineries. His unit had the four largest guns in Viet Nam—8-inch and 175mm artillery. At one point they loaded onto an LST [Landing Ship Tank] to go further north and next to them in harbor was a Shell Oil tanker which NVA frogmen blew up with mines; George thought the mines maybe were intended for the LST. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9 Awaiting the news of who is elected in the U.S., 12 hours behind in time. Neither George nor I slept much last night. Very restless. We all had a superb Thai dinner as guests of Sulak Sivaraksha, leading Thai non-violent activist, at his restaurant. Also a writer from the Philippines who said, “George Bush called Marcos a ‘champion of democracy’ and we can never forgive him for that.” Sulak publishes Seeds of Peace and a number of books. His son is at Swarthmore. Breakfast and the garbled news from the U.S. Heavy sentimental Reagan tapes on the news—Reagan and Normandy, and Statue of Liberty and Space Shuttle and California speech, etc. All triumph, tears and glory. Then lots of Bush and glory—WWII, U.N., family picnics, granddaughter, flags, triumph, etc. Bangkok is motorized—cars, buses, motorcycles and scooters. Almost no bicycles, no animal-pulled vehicles. Many Japanese cars, so pollution is not extreme, Ven. Kato says it is like Tokyo in the ’60s. Thousands of small shops as well as street vendors—food, camera, barber, motorcycle, sewing, hardware, pharmacy, dental clinics, breast enlargement surgery… Heavy Western influence in everything. Lots of food and incredible array of consumer items. Very little presence of police or military. Large numbers of Western tourists. 6 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10 “Bush elected: Asian markets soar.” ABC says “People voted their pocketbooks.” Bush names James Baker as Secretary of State. George says his history goes back to Nixon advertising, ran Reagan campaign. “Contra will be a top priority.” In the afternoon we were taken by a friend of Elaine and Kenneth Abel and Maha Glossananda to the ancient palace with enormous gold-on-glass-tile stupa.