The question was this, "Would you be willing to share your story, for use in a book?". The answer was this, "anything for the next generation.". And that's what got me to wonder, what are we willing to do for those who follow us? To what length will we go to leave our progeny better off than we are/were?

Well, Mr. Nguyen was willing to recall some of the most painful memories of his 50+ years on this wondrous planet of ours. And if you are among those who doubt my choice of 'wondrous', watch a BBC production, 'Planet Earth.' His candor is to be applauded, as well as the length to which he is prepared to go should serve as an inspiration to the rest of us. I, for one, am motivated to step up my game a little bit and give more than I currently do.

I think I speak for all contributors when I say, that's what we hope to encourage all of you to do. Just imagine...no really, close your eyes and imagine (don't close them yet, dummy....read on, then close them) if everyone who read this book were to give just 'a little more' of themselves. Am I the consummate altruist?

Not even close. I can be just as self-indulgent as the next man, and maybe more so in some ways. Do 'helpful' and 'self-indulgent' have to be mutually exclusive? Pregnant or not, mutually exclusive. Dead or alive, mutually exclusive. But 'helpful' and 'self-indulgent' need not be. What about masculinity?

Can we be 'MEN' and still lend a helping hand? If you answered no, you are in need of a hand. It's shameful that we feel these two concepts are not capable of co-existing together. Not to be a fatalist, but if we fail to pull our collective heads out of our rectums, things are just going to continue to spiral downward, and on the 'quick-fast-and-in-a-hurry'.

Mr. Nguyen's story: For those of you who only know the name 'Nguyen' from many moons ago when we anxiously awaited the newest episode of 21 Jumpstreet, where grown men tried to fit-in in high school to bust drug dealers and other criminals, you've got a lot to learn. My introduction to the proud people of Vietnam started onboard the mighty warship Paul Hamilton (DDG-60). That's where I met Seaman Pham, Tuan Pham.

So, it was nearly 21 years of fumbling through life before meeting a person of Vietnamese descent. Tuan was the smallest crack in the dam, but I didn't know it at this point. Fast forward 5 years and I'm living in the largest Vietnamese enclave outside of Vietnam. The dam has completely disintegrated.

Though I no longer live in Westminster, I continue to teach there and visit little Saigon once or twice a month, minimum, for the delectable culinary treasures that can be found there. Sadly, there are significant numbers of people who have lived their entire lives in this region and they've never once stepped foot in Little Saigon. Granted, driving in that area can be hazardous to your health, but it's completely and utterly worth the risks one takes.

This year, even more than most, my classroom is heavily populated with Vietnamese students. That's how I had the good fortune to meet Mr. Nguyen, as his daughter is one of my students. She's a gifted young lady with personality for miles. It takes herculean type efforts not to like this young lady. Not only is she a stellar student, but she can also tickle the ivories. My family and I were lucky enough to be invited to her winter recital. Later that school year, the Nguyens even took us out to dinner, Chinese-style seafood in the heart of Little Saigon.

It was at this dinner that I was stunned to hear Mr. Nguyen recall some of the stories from both life as a young man, and life as a political prisoner after his beloved South Vietnam fell into the hands of the Communist North. Before the turmoil, Mr. Nguyen was a child, a young man, and a young adult much the same as we were. Had my friends and I grown up where he grew up, it could have been me or one of them who was the unlucky one.

Their adventures took them to and fro via a railroad bridge that crossed a deep, dark, and awfully inviting, river which beckoned them to cool off inside it's invigorating plasma-ic mass! The heat and humidity of Vietnam in the summer makes the stickiest of New Jersey nights seem like you are wintering in Tempe. Who could blame the fellas for wanting to cast themselves off the edge of the tracks and into the river below? This should evoke memories of The Fugitive, a bit of Stand by Me, and maybe some of your own childhood memories. Everyone, in some way, should be able to relate.

Can you relate to this? Annually, in Vietnam and any other locale where palm trees grow, someone, somewhere, is responsible for paring and pruning the trees to allow for optimal foliage. Today, the day Mr. Nguyen and his gang of miscreants decided to once again take the plunge, was the day for someone, somewhere up- river to unburden Palm trees of their dying fronds.

Now, if you've never seen a frond that has been pruned from it's tree of origin, a little background is necessary; and if you have, skip this part

(Pruning typically involves two diagonal cuts at the base of the frond where it springs forth from the tree...and if you look closely, you can see where the remainder of the frond has a triangular appearance as it clings to the tree evermore. The recently chopped frond has, at its base, a pointed tip which will typically curve upward (or down, depending on your relative position). Strong readers, you may be able to see where this is going...

Body after body flung itself off of the bridge and into the mass of refreshment waiting below. The current, being no stronger than normal, carried the usual silt, sediment, and debris as it cruised to its final destination, a mouth that opened to the Pacific. The debris, this time thanks in part to the season, and the tipping point reached by whomever ordered the pruning of the palm trees, included the occasional frond. Many, if not all but 1 frond, were floating ever so visibly on the surface of the running river. It was that 1 frond that makes this story worth conveying...without that frond I, the author, have to look for other ways to fill these pages.

As his friend, we'll call him Jack because dollars-to-donuts if I put his given name with all the requisite accents and marks of punctuation, you'd butcher it beyond recognition, trust me on this one if you have little or no faimiliarity with written or spoken Vietnamese. Anyhow, Jack was just unfortunate. There is really no other explanation for what happened to him on this day, and more poignantly, why him and not any of the other 'jumpers', or why anyone at all?

Jack jumped! Jack had jumped the same jump hundreds of times before. Why should this time be any different? Well, if it weren't, I wouldn't have bothered to thype all of this nonsense via crack-berry, now would I?

Back to Jack and his incessant jumping...He jumped, but I think we've ascertained that already. It's at this point that I could make up exactly how elated Jack felt as he left behind the constraints of gravity and offered himself, mind body and soul, to the ether that surrounded him, as I wasn't there, but I'll let you the reader do that instead.

So, what do we have? A railroad bridge. Water down below. Youthful indifference to the multitude of possibilities. Time for pruning or paring (too lazy to look up which is which...if someone knows feel free to email me). Did you know that Palm Frond is also the name of a Cold War radar commonly found on 'enemy' vessels? And you thought YOU knew some useless crap, huh? I'm going to digress a lot, so get used to it...it's worth it, trust me.

So, here we have the proverbial perfect storm, and all hapless Jack wants to do is find some relief from the heat and humidity that has enveloped his Southeast Asian Nation. The time from jump to impact can be counted on one had, thumb not included. It took much longer for Jack's compadres (spanish word to describe Vietnamese friends...will the fun ever cease?)

Jack and the unsuspecting Palm Frond had a meeting that, like it or not, Jack and the Palm Frond would soon forget, but Jack's compadres, Mr. Nguyen included, would remember that meeting for a lifetime.

In bullet terms, it was a through-and-through, I think? The sharp end of the Palm Frond found a way in, and, a way out of Jack's torso. Quite matter-of-factly, Mr. Nguyen told all of the anxious listeners at the dining table that..."Jack died." Not a hint of emotion in his voice, as if, each time his 'gang' faced off against the bridge and river there was to be a minimum of 1 casualty, if not more.

Relatively speaking, these were the best times of Mr. Nguyen's young life. In a hurry, things would change for the worse, much worse; worse than many of us could even possibly fathom. However, that's exactly what I am asking of you. Throughout this text, try your very best, try like you've never tried before, try to put yourselves in the shoes of the protagonist, each and every time there is one.

I think, think mind you, that I can assume with near certainty, that most readers have not been through what Mr. Nguyen has been through. If you are one of the few who has experienced something similar to the terror, torment, and tribulations. He suffered through then you automatically have the respect of this human being. If not, then you are somewhat like me, and you'll be equally amazed by how lucky we are to have followed a different path.

Just to keep us on track, dearly beloved, we are gathered here to save the world, one child at a time, remember (refer to big words on cover for a refresher)? I purposely chose to have Mr. Nguyen's story come first because of the 'awe-factor'...and ya know what, I haven't even told the most awe-inspiring part of his story. That part is still to come, so stay with me, it'll be worth every moment of your time, promise!

I'm not considerate enough of your educational needs to provide a synopsis of the Vietnam War, or the causes that led up to it, nor the reasons why it ended. It has relevance, but the story can undoubtedly stand on its own two feet!

Mr. Nguyen, as had previously been established, was born and raised in Vietnam. And, had it not been for the scourge that is communism, he might be still living there today. Thanks in part to the meticulous record keeping of the Communists (rarely does this trait wind up in print or broadcast reports about the communists) Mr. Nguyen has been unable to return to his country of origin for any reason, whatsoever.

Considered an Enemy of the State, or political dissenter, Mr. Nguyen suffered dearly in order to attain those labels; and this, to the very best of my ability, is his story.

Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes, my son won’t eat them and I love them, thanks in part to the starring role they play in my world-famous pasta sauce, my world anyway… who cares if it’s not famous in your world. Maybe, after hearing this story, you’ll never look at a tomato quite the same again.

Concentration camps were for the Jews and I don’t think I need to go into too much depth about what their ultimate purpose was. Never mind the fact that Jews provided the bulk of the manual labor for the Nazis, extermination was the ultimate goal. Not so for the Viet Cong.

The Viet Cong, Northern Vietnamese, or Communists, as they went by many names…some I’ve opted not to type here…were not interested in total annihilation of the poor souls that wound up in their version of concentration camps. In what were commonly called re-education camps, prisoners were treated with much of the same brutality we’ve all witnessed in films like Schindler’s List and Band of Brothers. The major difference being the Nazis never tried to convert the Jews to their ‘viewpoint’.

The Viet Cong, on the contrary, were very much interested in a re-unification of the country where all of the people blindly followed the regime that despotically ruled the country. So, for an hour or more a day, sandwiched in between clearing mines, turning dense forest into cultivated farmland, and making whatever supplies the Viet Cong thought best for your camp to make, the prisoners in these re-education camps were quite literally, re-educated.

Watching film accounts of the re-education camps brought back not-so-fond memories of Navy bootcamp! In much the same way that Petty Officers Cassanova and Sherman tormented us, abused us, and turned our worlds both upside-down and inside-out, the Viet Cong had a similar goal, in trying to break these men down to the bare essentials, to the point where they had begun to question their very existence, their sensory input, and their memories.

Rudimentary as it may seem, it is quite effective in bringing about ‘reform’. By reform I mean changing a person’s entire worldview so that your world-view may be impressed upon them. Bootcamp is a little less ‘extreme’, but in many ways that is what the government has in mind. The Navy, and quite likely the other branches of the armed-forces, hope to take a group of young adults who have all spent 18+ years becoming whomever they have become and turn them into the well-oiled sailing machines they need to keep our industrial complex afloat!

The more I think about it, the more I see parallels between re-education camps and bootcamp. Beyond just the usual brain-washing that goes on, there are also way too many grown men cramped into archaic living quarters. Boot Camp was 50 or so bunk beds, with 25 along each wall and four-foot brick walls, with no doors, separated each toilet. We went to class every day to learn how to be better sailors just as the ‘resistance’ went to class every day to learn all of the wonderful things the Communists could do for them.

Issuance of discipline, while physically unappealing on both accounts, was considerably more painful when delivered by the communists. The worst I heard in regards to a person trying to avoid the abuse dished out by Recruit Division Commanders (RDCs) was when a recruit cracked under the pressure, backed up to the far end of their ‘berthing’, ran the length of the berthing at full speed, and dove head-first through the window that separated the RDC’s office from the rest of the berthing. Did I mention that the glass had the chicken-wire running through it, to minimize shattering?

All of that drama to avoid some yelling, some screaming, and an inhuman amount of calisthenics. Apparently he was one of those issued a ‘waiver’ as he would not have otherwise made it through the rigorous screening process that recruiters use with all new enlistees (carefully removing tongue from cheek).

He wasn’t exactly teying to escape, per se, but in some ways that young man’s actions can be viewed as an attempt to avoid the treatment he was currently receiving. The same can be said about the countless men, many of whom failed, who mustered the courage to attempt an escape from the communist ‘re-education’ camps. They were not big fans of the way their captors were treating, or better yet, mistreating them.

The communists had much more disagreeable tactics for discouraging the escape of their captives. How I went 33 years of living without knowing how important our big toes and their nearest neighbor are to our ability to run is beyond me! It wasn’t until Mr. Nguyen shared with me what happened to his brother-in-law that I would become familiar with this lil kernel of wisdom. More on this in a bit, promise.

We did, however, start by talking about tomatoes, and now seems like as good a time as any to get back to those tomatoes and shed some light on how they relate to all of these stories of men abusing their fellow man. I’ll give them some credit, no matter how poorly they treated us the other 23 hours in the day, and regardless of the fact that we were timed at every meal and had to grow accustomed to inhaling entire meals in under 10 minutes (timer starts once you enter the line), the Mess Management Specialists (MSs) were a proud tribe of sailors who worked very hard to make sure that we had the best chow that the circumstances allowed for. The same couldn’t be said for the Communist captors.

Unlike our steaming hot waffles, trays of fresh fruit, and eggs to order, those being re-educated were lucky to be fed at all. Could you imagine arguing with your best friend over who gets the head and who gets the tail of a cricket? Better yet, instead of just popping into the local grocery market, what if getting your hands on a not-even-close-to-ripe tomato meant you had to do the following: First, you would have had to help your fellow captives clear-cut a swath of dense jungle. Once the trees and surrounding brush were felled, removed, and burned…assuming no one found an unexploded mine…the fun part begins.

Using incredibly rudimentary tools, you and your team of captives are to now rid the soil of roots, rock, and other rubbish (to keep the alliteration alive). When that was done to the satisfaction of the guards then the plowing and tilling could begin. Keep in mind, your sole motivator, all the while, is that tomato that you might have the chance to eat weeks, or maybe even months from now. Though you won’t be just scooping that tomato up and plopping it down upon your tray as if you were in boot camp…because you are being ‘re-educated’, remember?

All of that labor, for one friggin’ tomato that can’t make up its mind about being green or yellow, wow! To acquire said tomato, as it is not being grown for your benefit, is a horse of a different feather (hope ya know what I mean by that one). These tomatoes will go on, like all of the crops you and your colleagues raise, to feed scores of people in all shapes and classes, but none of them are YOU!

If you really, really want a tomato, you will have to do something along the lines of the following: volunteer to carry empty five-gallon jugs fifty or so yards, barefoot (cause no one is issued the shoes that would aid in your passage through the dense jungle, should you opt to escape), fill them to spilling with water. At 8.3 pounds per gallon, you are looking at 41.5 gallons of water sloshing around under the length of each of your arms. Naïve readers may be thinking, “well, at least they got to drink fresh water!”. Wrong! This water was for the tomatoes.

So, the trek back and forth is grueling thanks to the mud, the shoe-less feet, and the unpredictable weight of the water, constantly testing your sense of balance. Three rows to the left of the row you are currently watering you spy that tomato, the indecisive one we talked about earlier. The one you had been dreaming of ever since you were told you’d be clearing forest to plant tomatoes. Nothing else about your predicament offered as much hope as the flavor your tomato was going to offer, just a few short months down the road.

Now, the trick is to empty your jugs at just the right moment, so that when you fall you will only be harming yourself, and not bringing an added beating upon yourself by spilling the precious water. On your way down you manage to wriggle your fingers free of the jug handle, reach out and snatch the tiny tomato from its place on the vine, and guide it deftly into your empty jug all before you reach the ground. With hands otherwise occupied, you only have your face and torso to cushion your fall. Not ideal, but at least now you’ve got that tomato, right?

Well, yes! And no! The tomato is in the jug, and now you’ve got to get it out, and into your mouth. Lucky for you the tomato floats, so when you return to the pseudo-watering-hole (the place where all the prisoners drink from, and ladle water onto their filthy bodies in a shower-like ritual) to refill your jugs and start again the trials and tribulations that are ‘watering the tomatoes’, you can do so knowing that if you are careful, shortly thereafter you will be dining on the fabulous flavor that is a green tomato, and not the ‘fried’ variety either. Oh no, steps have not been taken to coax or nudge the flavor in any way. Okay, so whatever had been added to the watering ‘trough’ by way of dirty, sweating men and the various animals and bugs that also sought some kind of relief by way of this trough may have contributed some of their ‘essence’ to the flavors you now found exploding inside of your mouth.

So, you multiply this story by about 1,000,000 and you’ve got yourself a pretty good sense of how important sustenance will become to one man, or many men, depending on the number of people who have been forced to live under such inhumane circumstances.

Now, you take Mr. Tomato-Stealer and you reunite him with a brother-in-law he has not seen since he was imprisoned, who, by the way, has been plotting an escape for many months now, and you have a very tenuous situation that could explode at any minute.

The conversation would have gone something like this:

Mr. Nguyen: Eyes dart right and left, grow to twice their normal size, and then quickly fade into a resigned look more befitting a man in his situation.

Brother-in-Law: Eyes grow to three times their normal size and then return to normal upon Mr. Nguyen’s obvious ocular reproach.

This type of visual back-and-forth goes on just long enough to allow for the men to agree on a plan to be in line next to each other when the next chain-gang is strung together. It doesn’t take but a few minutes before a call goes out for volunteers to help clear some brush; and yes, the word ‘volunteer’ is used as loosely as is possible under California state law. Thanks to some well-intended jostling and a few dirty looks exchanged between the duo and the ‘unaware’ Mr. Nguyen and his brother-in-law, whom we will call Mr. Tran, were able to get chained together.

I was going to add the text, “in line,” but I figured that would rob me of my opportunity to say, ”Imagine that, two grown men who can’t recall a time when they were more happy than they were when they were fortunate enough to be chained together.”

Immediately the two men were clamoring for information: where have you been, have you heard from my wife, your sister, are you willing to escape with me? That last one had caught Mr. Nguyen by surprise. This was his third time being reacquainted with the re-education camp system. The camp he currently found himself in was the fifth in five weeks. The Communists had grown tired of his repeated escapes and hoped that constant relocation would help minimize his familiarity with the location and its inherent weaknesses. For whatever reason, they chose not to use their more convincing deterrents with Mr Nguyen. More to come about those later.

Mr. Nguyen’s first thoughts upon hearing his brother’s wishes were, “Dear God, he has a wife, a family, and I am just one man!”. His thoughts quickly became words and he found himself trying to talk his brother-in-law out of trying to escape.

Brother-in-law had been here for more than a few months, and had been making accommodations for his escape almost since the day his clothes were stripped from him and he was given the rags that had become his prison-uniform. He had explained to Mr. Nguyen how there were small stores of food hidden throughout the forest, in preparation for his planned escape. Mr. Nguyen did his very best to appeal to Mr. Tran’s softer-side, but continually found himself coming up short. When he spoke of staying, for his family, Mr. Tran would counter with escaping, for his family. It was a heated argument consisting of mostly whispers and varying degrees of eye sizes; all of which spoke volumes that the men carrying assault rifles were none the wiser to. Mr. Nguyen was unable to change Mr. Tran’s mind, so when all was said and done, it would be two making a break for freedom, instead of just one.

According to Mr. Tran, shortly before and shortly after re-education class was held provided the best opportunity for escape, as this was the only time the prisoners were afforded the luxury of not having been chained to another human being, something most of us take for granted, no?

Mr. Tran tried his very best to help his brother-in-law learn the intricate system of fences and barricades that served as deterrents to escape in the surrounding forest. It was of little use though. Mr. Nguyen was no longer capable of keeping distinct or separate memories of the various camps he’d ‘attended’. He relented, and told his brother-in-law that he would simply follow on his heels as they raced toward the possibility of freedom, the chance at freedom, the path toward freedom. Notice I was careful not to say ‘freedom’ directly. Escaping the confines of the re-education camp did not guarantee your freedom, it just meant you were one step, one huge step, closer to being free.

There was one minor ‘glitch’ that would complicate things ever-so-slightly! A virtual monkey-wrench, if you will, that made ‘plan-A’ a bit more complicated than it had appeared as the two men hurled themselves over the first fence.

The bullet that pierced Mr. Tran’s flesh was so much of an annoyance that he dropped like a sack of potatoes. Imagine that, stopping for something as trivial as a bullet. Remember that part, not too far back where Mr. Tran assured Mr. Nguyen that there was nothing to worry about, as he knew which path offered the least resistance, and where the stores of food had been hidden; well…

Well, here’s one of those choices that, for obvious reasons, someone failed to prepare Mr. Nguyen for. Do you A) go back and try to offer aid to your wife’s husband, who for all intents and purposes garners the same feelings as any one of your eight other blood-siblings, knowing you’ll probably be caught and executed, this being your 4th attempt at escape? Or do you B) run like hell, knowing that you have no clue where to run, where to find food, or how to get back to civilization (the term is used loosely to describe a Vietnam that was no longer what we Westerners would call ‘civilized’).

Self-preservation was a stronger instinct than a commitment to one’s family on this particular occasion and it won a brief, but epic battle. Mr. Nguyen, fearing the worst, as the guards were known to be crack-shots with their rifles, took to running with not a scrap of protection on his feet and not much more than tattered rags to cloth his otherwise naked, emaciated frame. Thanks to a strict diet of nothing much and very little else, Mr. Nguyen was able to drop 40 pounds from a frame that carried about as much fat as a large flounder. Maybe re-education camps could help us with the growing obesity epidemic we face in this country. Maybe?

Mr. Nguyen is on the run.

Cop’s got his gun,

And right about now

It’s time to have some fun?

Sorry, just been looking for a way to weave the Beastie Boys into this text. Now that I’ve gotten that checked off of my list of to-dos, I can gleefully proceed with this book.

Imagine, if you will, being on the run, in a dense jungle, with virtually no means for survival. Lucky for Mr. Nguyen, in a really weird and roundabout way, the French invaded and occupied Vietnam for a period of 50+ years. How does a foreign invader and subsequent occupying force benefit a young man fleeing communist captors in jungle so dense he can barely see three trees beyond the one that is staring him in the face. Well, thanks to the French occupation of his homeland Mr. Nguyen was able to join the scouts (yep, them scouts; boy, cub, eagle, etc.). He swears that without all of those experiences he would have died within the first day of being on the run.

It also helped that he was willing to sleep in a box used to transport dead bodies to their final resting place and drink rainwater out of reservoirs typically reserved for offering some water to the flowers that were left as offerings to the relatives who had passed. Nevermind the fact that he set all respect for other religions aside as he proceeded to dine on the various fruits and flowers left for the deceased. His rationale, “If I don’t, I’ll be joining them sooner than I had hoped.”

Months of walking, searching, hoping, cursing, and surviving finally ended one day when he found a road. As Mr. Nguyen stepped into the clearing he saw a bus that had just passed. Knowing that buses only take major corridors in this region of his country, Mr Nguyen knew that this road provided both the best and worst of circumstances at the very same time.

Thanks in part to a poorly organized economic system, the communists had neither the money nor the equipment to move troops around the country. This meant that troop movements, regardless of their size, usually meant soldiers boarding buses, and riding right alongside the peasant farmers returning from a daylong trip to the market to hawk their goods.

The sores, puncture wounds, and various diseases that called the soles of Mr. Nguyen’s feet home had become too much to bear. Right there, at the side of the road, come hell or high-water, Mr. Nguyen collapsed!

Funny thing, our memories. You already know that Mr. Nguyen conveyed this story to me, and yet you are not sure of how things turned out for Mr. Nguyen after he passed out! Well, let’s just say that he lived, and leave it at that.

Huh? You mean you want to know precisely what happened? Well, if you ask him, he’ll say it was the hand of God that saved him. And, to be perfectly honest, I have been unable to argue the counter, to his point.

You see, the next bus to come down the road was a miracle in more ways than one. However, Mr. Nguyen had no idea how fortunate he was, as he remained unconscious for nearly three days.

When he finally did return to a semi-coherent state he saw before him the smiling face and warm eyes of a queerly dressed man. Startled at first, the words, “It’s okay young man, you are safe now,” allowed Mr. Nguyen to experience comfort and near serenity for the first time since his beloved Saigon fell.

As his health began to return and his feet started to heal, thanks in part to the angels and saints that tended to him, Mr. Nguyen was able to piece together what had happened to him. Seeing as how he wasn’t currently dead, he still had all ten toes intact, and his achilles tendon had not been clipped with a pair of pruning shears, there must have been a bus that was free of soldiers or their sympathizers.

As the war for total control of Vietnam raged on, the communists grew less and less tolerant of the resistance and their attempts to escape their re-education camps. In an effort to reduce the number of captives trying to escape the Communists gathered all of the captives together and asked them, very nicely mind you, to please stop trying to escape. When this approach failed they did what any hardline regime in their shoes could be expected to do, they brought the re-captured captives back to camp and made examples of them.

Anesthetic being costly and in short supply, they opted to perform their various deterrent-based surgeries sans anesthesia. While others gathered around to observe, at the request of their captors, of course, one lucky captive would be given the rudimentary surgical kit which consisted of nothing more than a pair of pruning shears, you know, the kind you’d see in Driving Miss Daisy or Steel Magnolias, where the old white woman is gleefully tending to her prize roses or geraniums or cactuses? Here nor there, the point is, one lucky prisoner would be designated ‘surgeon-for-a-day’, or at least for a few moments. He went back to being unemployed as soon as he completed the task of lopping off those toes I typed about earlier; the ones that unbeknownst to me, and probably most others, were vital to running; an act that is almost essential if you wish to escape, and not just serve as target practice for guards who have little else to do beyond taking target practice when the opportunity presents itself.

If toe-removal was not the punishment/deterrent du-jour, then you might find yourself a few inches higher, above the heel, preparing to clip one or both of the tendons that were named for the nearly invincible character from Greek Mythology. Next time the opportunity presents itself, try running without the two inner-most toes on each foot, or two detached Achilles Tendons. Or, take Mr. Tran’s word for it, his captors knew what they were doing when they had a fellow prisoner shear off four of his toes.

You see, after word had traveled through secure enough channels to reach his family, the first person to visit Mr. Nguyen was his sister, whom we’ll call Mrs. Nguyen, for pronunciation’s sake. And for those of you still saying ‘Nuh-Goo-En’, you might be better off just saying a synonym for victory, as it is as close as our mouths, tongues, etc., can get to pronouncing one of the most common Vietnamese ‘family-names’.

Mrs. Nguyen brought plenty of news with her, but none brought more relief to her brother’s soul than the news that his wife’s husband did not succumb to his wounds upon being shot, nor did the barbaric surgery that followed managed to drain him of his life force; a few toes, yes…but life force, no!

What did Mr. Nguyen take away from these harrowing experiences; experiences that admittedly my words can’t begin to adequately describe? Well, in terms that most of us can understand, the morals to this story are as follows: “be prepared”, be not wasteful, and teach the children well.

I am once again finding it incredibly difficult to argue against one of Mr. Nguyen’s assertions, that being a scout saved his life. He attributes his ability to survive in the jungle for so long as a direct result of training during his many years in the scouting organization. I tease him, “If the training was so great, how come it took months to find your way out?”

Organizations like the scouts are great pieces of the son-rearing puzzle. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t take a second to say that I would not allow my son to join the scouts because of their views on homosexuality; seriously, if it were a ‘choice’ why would you choose it? Enough said!

I cannot deny that there are plenty of good things that come from such organizations and I refuse to throw any babies out with the bathwater…..that being said, nor will I glorify any organization that openly segregates or denies membership based on something that is beyond our control.

‘Be prepared’ is the message and we will focus on those words, not necessarily the practices of an organization that is forever linked to those two words. Gentlemen, we must be prepared. And of far greater import, we need to make sure that our sons are prepared to take the reins after we are no longer capable of doing so.

It is highly implausible to think that Mr. Nguyen could have been specifically prepared for the events that would forever be known as the most harrowing times of his life. Nor can we, as fathers to our sons, prepare them for every eventuality.

One of the morals to this story is that thanks to Mr. Nguyen’s ‘being prepared’, coupled with a bit of good fortune, you’ve got a man telling me his story, not a family member speaking softly about a fondly-recalled loved one who is no longer ‘with us’. Never mind that Mr. Nguyen now serves as owner/operator of a commercial contractor’s service, which every now and then dabbles in some residential work.

Mr. Nguyen’s ‘preparation’ is not a recipe with quantifiable ingredients that can be slapped into a cook-book and mass-produced for public consumption. Mr. Nguyen’s ‘recipe for success’ can never be copied in its entirety. Nor can it be broken down into its constituent parts and used for any snake-oils or cure-alls. The best we can hope to do, with what Mr. Nguyen has to share, is look for the prevailing themes and see if any are applicable to our cause, so to speak. As a reminder, we are here to SAVE THE WORLD!!!

So, get them boys of yours signed up! Drag ’em down to whatever hall, room, or patch of grass that your town is using to hold registrations. Keep in mind though, this ain’t like those fire and forget missiles we have out there; your participation is going to be required throughout. You don’t necessarily need to become lodge leader or anything…but you will be required to do your part to ‘support the troops’. Rest assured though, the more you put in, the more your son will get out of it, which in turn means the more we (society) will benefit. Everybody wins when you do your part. And as obvious as this SHOULD be, everybody loses when you fail to do your part!