Back to Vietnam: Vet visiting country to examine projects

BEREA — It has been 35 years since Craig Williams returned from the war in Vietnam. Williams is now on his way back to the country for the first time to get a firsthand look at projects being conducted by the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization for which he has been a board member for 20 years.

Williams is set to board a jet at 1:04 p.m. today in Lexington bound for Detroit. From there, he will fly to New York, Alaska, Taiwan and Hong Kong before landing in Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital.

The VVAF’s land mine clearing operation, for which it was co-recipient of the Nobel Prize, is one of several projects Williams plans to examine during the nearly-two weeks he spends in Vietnam.

Williams will also look at VVAF-sponsored prosthetic clinics for land mine victims and economic development projects for communities suffering as the result of land mines.

“I’ve been involved in Vietnam veterans groups ever since I got back,” Williams said. “This particular organization is one that is focused more on the causes of war, the impact of the preparation for war, the consequences of war, but most interestingly ... is the aftermath of war.

“There’s always a lot of attention given when there’s conflict going on, but there’s often not a lot of attention given when the fighting stops,” Williams said. “But there is a tremendous amount of residual impact on civilian populations, not to mention veterans themselves.”

Williams is particularly concerned with the increase in the number of civilian casualties of war throughout history.

“That’s a ramification or a result of conflict that a lot of people don’t pay attention to and this organization does,” he said. “At the end of the day there’s not a lot of difference between a village in Hanoi or in Vietnam and a village in southeastern Kentucky. There are some differences, but ultimately they’re just like you and I. They’ve got feelings. They’ve got families. They’re trying to provide for themselves and have a life.”

While working to create understanding between the cultures, VVAF programs have been designed to build stronger communities in Vietnam, Williams said.

“I think I’m going to be very proud of what we’ve accomplished over there, particularly in some of these prosthetics clinics where we’ve taken an initiative in countries that were particularly hard-hit by civilian injuries due to land mines” he said.

“We’ve provided not only the actual physical prosthetic, but we’ve also been able to provide a holistic approach to that problem where the prosthetics are made primarily out of local resources, the people that now make them are local folks so they have employment and it helps those individuals who need these things and get them so they can lead a more productive life,” he said.

Despite the VVAF’s efforts, aging land mines are still wounding people in countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia.

“It’s a major problem,” Williams said. “There are hundreds of people a day that are civilians around the world who are getting injured by these things.”

Williams, who is also executive director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group and a member of the Chemical Demilitarization Citizens Advisory Board, thinks it will be remarkable to see how his relationship with Vietnam has changed.

“The most interesting thing to me that I think is going to be very rewarding is that I’m going to be meeting with, talking with and being shown around by people who, 35 years ago, were trying to kill me,” he said. “We were enemies. It will highlight the question as to ‘Who defines who your enemies are?’ I was 19 and somebody told me ‘That’s your enemy.’ What the hell did I know. I was just out of high school.”

Williams is eager to see for himself what the VVAF has accomplished in Vietnam.

“I’ve been working on it a long time and have never really seen the product,” he said. “... (The programs) provide a sense of hope and it provides a very important element in people’s lives and that is that somebody cares about their situation.”

Ryan Garrett can be reached at rgarrett@richmondregister.com or at (859) 623-1669, Ext. 234.