 On behalf of the United States Institute of Peace, we're delighted to welcome everyone to this very special event. My name is Lise Grande, and I'm the head of USIP, which was established by the U.S. Congress in 1984 as a nonpartisan public institution dedicated to helping prevent, mitigate, and resolve violent conflict abroad. The Institute is very proud to be part of the many initiatives that promote reconciliation cooperation and deeper understanding in the wake of the war between the United States and Vietnam and also between the U.S. and Laos and the U.S. and Cambodia. Starting last year, USIP launched the Vietnam War Legacies and Reconciliation Initiative, which focuses on supporting the many efforts are already underway to help resolve war legacies, which include, of course, Agent Orange, landmine clearance, unexploded ordnance, and support to persons with disabilities. The dialogue we are hosting today and tomorrow is one of the pillars of this initiative. For more than 40 years, the U.S. and Vietnam have worked together on reconciliation. This extraordinary effort, which has evolved from accounting for missing U.S. personnel to the U.S. now assisting the government of Vietnam in its efforts to recover and identify its own war dead represents one of the longest and most successful reconciliation processes in recent history. This work is supported by the U.S. government, the U.S. Congress, veterans organizations, and countless institutions across the United States. We would like to take this moment to single out of the many people who have been part of this reconciliation the leadership of Senator Patrick Leahy, who is one of the longest serving senators in America's history and who, before retiring this January, will be leading a congressional delegation to the region to reaffirm Congress's commitment to war legacy cooperation. To start today's event, USIP is honored to host Mr. Michael Schieffer, the assistant administrator for the Bureau of Asia in the United States Agency for International Development. Mr. Schieffer assumed this important role after spending a decade as a senior advisor and counselor on the professional staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Mr. Schieffer has served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia, worked for the Stanley Foundation, received a Council on Foreign Relations Hitachi International Affairs Fellowship in Japan, and was the Senior National Security Advisor and Legislative Director for Senator Diane Feinstein. I hope everyone joins me in welcoming Assistant Administrator Schieffer and the Institute's Director for Southeast Asia, Brian Harding, for our opening conversation. Brian. Well, thank you very much, Liz, for the introduction and also your support to the Vietnam War Legacy and Reconciliation Initiative here at USIP. You've already introduced Michael. I think if you've paid any attention to the program, you'll see that we have an incredible lineup. We're going to be doing this in two parts. First some distinguished current and former officials, and then we're going to hear from two truly extraordinary private citizens who have really devoted their lives to these issues as well. So being that Michael has been introduced, and I think I'm the one that people are least interested in hearing from, I'll just turn straight to Michael and I'll introduce our other speakers after Michael finishes his initial remarks. Thank you, Brian. Thank you, Liz, and thank you to USIP for organizing this important conversation. I will add that the one piece that you forgot in the introduction was that in addition to all the other things I've done professionally, every now and then I have managed to help or at least not get in the way of Tim Rieser and Senator Leahy. So that may be my biggest accomplishment in all my years in the Senate. The title of today's plenary, as you know, is Healing from the Wounds of War. Healing from anything, especially war, is a journey. The consequences of war don't disappear when the war is over. Wounds heal, but the process can be painful, and the trauma can be carried down for generations. Legacies of war affect our bodies, our memories, our friendships, our politics, even our very soil. They shape our present and our future. In Vietnam, once enemies, now friends, know and understand this very well. As I was reflecting on the discussion today, I thought of my own journey and how fitting it is that my first public event, this is my debut as assistant administrator, my first public event in my new job is on Vietnam. As a child, I played Vietnam War in the sandbox at my school, and I remember one summer when my favorite swimming teacher at the Key Bridge Marriot right across the river here just disappeared, and my parents had to explain to me that he went to Vietnam, and he never came back. Later growing up in New York, I remember how delighted my parents were when they... That's reassuring. I remember how delighted my parents were when they got to be friends with diplomats from Vietnam's mission to the United Nations. This was in the days before normalization, who lived just the floor below us in our apartment complex. And then some years later, after my father died, I went to Vietnam with my backpack for a month, and over some delicious, and it really was delicious, Chakal Avang in Hanoi. I finally, for the first time, broke down in tears, and it was on a bench overlooking Hun Kim Lake that I did my morning for my father, and started that healing journey for myself. Since then, I've been able to travel to Vietnam in my work for the Senate. I've been able to travel there accompanying a Secretary of Defense, something that would have been unheard of at one point in our relationship. I've been able to help Tim every now and then, and soon I hope to be able to travel to Vietnam on behalf of USAID. So Vietnam and our relationship and our journey together has been part of my consciousness since I've been conscious, and I've been fortunate to travel along and through our different paths and our partnership and our healing for my entire personal and professional life. There are others, however, for whom the healing is more challenging. I'd like to share with you this morning the story of Tian Nan, who lives with his family in Hue Province, and is growing up with developmental disabilities. His parents, Nguyen and Vuong, have concerns early on. He would get easily frustrated and throw tantrums. He couldn't tell them what he needed. Tian wasn't like other children. His parents knew they needed support. But in Vietnam, families like Tian's don't have easy access to health specialists. Families like Tian's, however, need special care. Their children deserve it in order to thrive. And as our two nations continue our journey to healing, we have an obligation to seek to provide it. Across Vietnam, USAID and our partners support children with disabilities and help parents improve their ability to care for their children. We help clinics and hospitals. We help them screen for disabilities as part of routine health checks. We train rehabilitation professionals to get help to the people they need. And we help Vietnam institute its first ever occupational and speech and language therapy courses in its universities. And with our Vietnamese partners, we're seeing results. In the last five years, Vietnam's workforce of skilled rehabilitation practitioners has expanded, making these services available in some districts for the first time, including Ntenin and Binh Phuc, which now have rehabilitation units staffed with trained and licensed practitioners in each and every one of their districts. And Tian's life is improving as well. His father is able to apply the training he received from USAID, but our partners and both parents are more confident raising their son. Tian is able to help with chores at home and go to school. That is what healing looks like for children, for families, and for countries. Over the 27 years since normalization, our two countries have traveled on an incredible journey together, particularly the past decade in our comprehensive partnership and as we build, as we seek to build a strategic partnership based on our genuine friendship. USAID's current efforts in Vietnam focus on three areas in particular. Disabilities assistance, dioxin remediation, and identification of the deceased. Let me talk a little bit about each of these areas. Thanks to the historic legislation spearheaded by Senator Lehi, in 1991 USAID began a program designed to address one of the government of Vietnam's expressed priorities on the path towards normalizing relations. This was the need of Vietnam's war wounded. Primarily the 250,000 amputees who had minimal, with any access to appropriate prosthetic or rehabilitation services. USAID supported the local production and fitting of prosthetic limbs and wheelchairs in partnership with the Vietnamese government and American NGOs. We provided high quality prosthetic and rehabilitation training for local staff, procured the materials and equipment, and helped construct needed facilities. Since then our disability programming in Vietnam has grown significantly. We have contributed approximately 140 million in assistance to persons with disabilities over the past 30 years. And as we know, the history of war also remains in Vietnam's soil. In close partnership with the government of Vietnam, USAID is working to remediate two of Vietnam's three identified hotspots of remaining Agent Orange contamination. We know that together we can be successful in these efforts. Across six years we collaborated with the US Small Business and a global leader in thermal soil treatment to make Da Nang a cleaner and safer city with the airport now expanding to utilize 75 acres of clean land. We cleaned up the airport by processing, meaning cooking and batches over 600 degrees, enough dirt to fill 56 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Today, we are working closely with Vietnam to replicate the success at Bien Hoa Air Base, the largest remaining hotspot of Dax in contamination. And an enormous challenge that will involve four times the volume of soil that was handled at Da Nang. The United States has so far invested over 160 million towards Dax in remediation at Bien Hoa. Even as we address the legacies of war for today and for the future, we must be mindful that healing also requires our continued attention to address wounds that remain open from the past. With the Department of Defense, we're moving forward with new technology to work with the government of Vietnam to improve its means of identifying missing Vietnamese from the war. We are honored to contribute to this absolutely crucial effort. Families deserve the closure of seeing their loved ones at rest. We cannot forget, ignore, deny the legacies of the past. We will continue to do our part to address and resolve them. And in so doing, open up the possibilities for the future. Right now, in addition to the areas I discussed, the US and Vietnam partner across a wide array of shared priorities, including improving governance and transparency while strengthening inclusive economic growth, addressing complex environmental challenges such as ocean plastics and the future of the Mekong Delta and assisting Vietnam in its energy transition to meet its ambitious COP26 goals, increasing student exchanges and higher education cooperation to create a 21st century workforce, global health security cooperation to detect and monitor emerging pandemic threats and to strengthen health systems resilience in the face of future crisis. Together, these cooperative efforts have helped both our nations heal from the past and to open the door to expanding and deepening the partnership we enjoy today. They promote a more open, secure and prosperous Vietnam and a more open, secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific region. I look forward to continuing this important work with you and to realize this future for Vietnam and its people. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. And thank you for taking the time. You know, as Lisa mentioned earlier, I think Michael's in a second week on the job, but for a lot of reasons, you know, it doesn't need a lot of briefing or getting up to speed because of the role he played in the Congress. And I think as we've already alluded to with Senator Leahy's role and others, the role of Congress in this conversation in U.S.-Vietnam relations is fundamental. And so I think anybody who's in this room is thrilled to see you in this job, time is of the essence. And hopefully with a man who knows the Congress so well, we can see us this moment here in this important time. I'm going to introduce our second speaker in a moment, but I'll just first say to those who are in the room here, there will be time for a question and answer. If you can write your questions down on paper that I understand has been provided, Andrew Wells-Dong, who's really running the show here from the front row as our director of our War Legacies and Reconciliation Project, will read those questions after we get through our initial remarks. But our next speaker will be Ambassador Ton Nu Thien Ninh, who has been a university lecturer, a career diplomat and an elected official in Vietnam. Among her many important roles, she was Vietnam's ambassador to the European Union in Belgium. She was vice chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the National Assembly. Today she is the president of the Ho Chi Minh City Peace and Development Foundation. And as I understand it, if you watch Vietnam's media, you know Ambassador Ninh. So over to you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, friends, you might wonder why I was invited by Andrew Wells-Dong to participate in this dialogue in this conference. As a multilateralist diplomat, I remember going to New York every year for about 10 years. And I was therefore in contact with a lot of American officials and American friends, as well as members of the Vietnamese American community. And in my capacity as vice chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, I was in charge of relations with Europe and America. So with that, I was happy to be the co-chair of the first ever US-Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange Dioxin. That the then president of Fort Foundations, Susan Beresford, spearheaded. So in other words, I personally have been involved with matters US-Vietnam. So today I will take an approach of a reflective approach. This is an opportunity for us, for me anyway, to take stock of what we have achieved together in terms of post-war, post-conflict peace building, which is a complex, difficult process, not easy at all. Within the 10 minutes, a lot to each of us on this dense and complex topic of healing the wounds of war, I have chosen to focus on four points to reflect on these angles and layers in order to open perspectives for more in-depth specific discussion within panel 1B. Since the end of the war, which was in all respects an existentially defining traumatic experience for those involved and concerned, as we just heard. Vietnam and the US, Vietnamese and American people have been engaged on a singular joint journey of post-war peace building through painstaking normalization towards today's broad, multifaceted and deepening bilateral ties. This has been a challenging, complex, but rewarding process because it did not only emanate from and involve the two governments and officials on both sides, but was also importantly embraced and actively pursued by civil society entities, as well as men and women of goodwill in Vietnam and the US. I would be remiss not to pay homage here to Senator Patrick Leahy and Tim Reza, who is among us. And we know the sad news that Senator Leahy will retire very soon, but before he retires, we will welcome him with open arms in Vietnam for his, I think, last official. I'm sure not his last, but his last official visit to Vietnam. He has been on the official's side, perhaps the most steadfast and effective contributor to post-war peace building and remediation. But I wish to mention citizens, men and women of goodwill and civil society entities. For example, on the US side, Geraldine Brusso and her peace trees. You see, Geraldine Brusso lost her brother, who was a pilot, and his plane was down in the northern part of Vietnam. She not only managed to overcome, but she started this project in Quang Ngai province. She brought the fiancé of late brother. And many years later, she even brought her mother. It was not easy to do. But you know, she herself, with her peace trees project, you know, over the years, and with her family members, she has been a symbol of the kind of overcoming and healing the wounds of war of one's own will, courage and determination. I'd like to also mention Chuck Seacy, a Vietnam veteran, and Renew, along with Veterans for Peace. Just these two sort of civil society examples on the US side. On the Vietnamese side, of course, I can mention the Vietnam USA Society, or the throngs of visitors, including American, who visit the War Legacy Museum in Vietnam. And if you haven't been there on one of your visits to Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City, go there. Don't worry that it's going to be, you know, sort of heavy. I mean, it's there to not to forget, but also to move forward. And so I encourage you to go there. Now, normalization of Vietnam-US relations has benefited early on from quasi unanimous support from the government and the people in Vietnam. The process in the US has been more gradual. And in particular, unfortunately, has faced some vocal resistance from some inflexible members of the Vietnamese American community. But should we not strive to make that joint journey move towards some extent and form of reconciliation? Which clearly is a bolder, qualitative next step for the whole actors on both sides. Normalization is the first step. Reconciliation is the next qualitative step. Because the notion of reconciliation is sensitive, especially for some segments of the Vietnamese American community, let me at this point in time stress the following. First, nearly all families in Vietnam, including mine, had members on both sides of the conflict. It is time 50 years after the end of the war to make our own peace among Vietnamese, beyond ideology and politics. To make this happen, let us identify common ground, common interests, and promote mutual engagement, exchanges and cooperation. As is gradually happening on the ground, with second and third post-war generation, Vietnamese nationals and Vietnamese Americans. David Thay, back in Vietnam from Seattle in 1998, soon after normalization, set up the now ubiquitous Highlands Coffee Shop chain. But today, young Vietnamese Americans are also settling down in Vietnam, starting businesses such as a gin distillery with flavor ingredients from local ethnic minorities from the North and from the Central Highlands, or a Gen Z media platform which reaches out to millions. Meanwhile, someone who experienced the hardships and losses of war during her childhood and adolescence in Vietnam has now made a name for herself with the success of her first novel in English, The Mountain's Sing. Winner of the 2020 Lan An Literary Award Fellowship for Contribution to Peace and Reconciliation. On the Vietnamese side, properly speaking, there may be four factors explaining the support for and progress of normalization and reconciliation between the two former adversaries. First is, I believe, Vietnam's deep-rooted sense of nationhood, tested through centuries of trials and tribulations, but which, once the country independent, reunified and at peace, expresses itself in a shared thirst for and powerful drive towards prosperity and development. It was Ho Chi Minh who kept reminding us during the decolonization struggle not to forget the enemy within. That is illiteracy, ignorance and poverty. In other words, our people, the Vietnamese people, are fortunate that they are forward looking and progress-minded. Another dimension may be the Buddhist influence with its culture of forbearance, which shuns extremism and which cultivates accommodation. A third factor, I believe, is Vietnamese society's cohesive tendencies, fostered by a strong sense of belonging, belonging within the framework of extended family ties, clan community and native place frameworks. The fourth factor is the pragmatism, the realism of Vietnam and the Vietnamese in dealing with the past and the present, and also with the outside world. From conflict with several major powers, moving to peaceful, mutually beneficial relations with them, based on a realistic appraisal of common ground, shared interests and respective strengths and weaknesses through history to the present day, Vietnam has indeed honed its skills at living and working with major powers. Let us heal from the past by joining minds and hearts to build the future. You may have noticed I put minds first for a reason. We can discuss that during the panel. Some might opt for hearts first, but from what I said before that makes sense. Hearts are sometimes blind. Minds are supposed to be sort of shining and bright so and have the heart in the right direction. Now, although there is definitely a singularity to the US Vietnam post-war peace building, from what was stated earlier, there may be some considerations of possible relevance to other post-conflict situations in the world. I will mention two. First, importance of respect for cultural identity and community spirit, as well as the importance of sharing a shared sense of nationhood. Second, agree to disagree on certain matters. And that applies to everyone, both Vietnamese and American. But identify common ground and interests. And encourage joint projects involving younger generations. Thank you for your attention. Thank you very much, Ambassador Ninh. That was fantastic. And so many threads to pick up. And just to pick up on the last one. I mean, this is a lot of what we're trying to think about here at USIP. There's so much more work to do in the US Vietnam story. But where else? What lessons can we draw from this? Our third and final panelist before we head to a short question and answer period is Jed Royal, who we just connected, it turns out, for the first time in over 10 years. Jed is also very new to his job. He's the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs. And as we were saying earlier, it turns out over the last several years, he's just had an incredibly diverse and impressive tour around all sorts of important parts of the Department of Defense. He's a career member of the senior executive service. His most recent position was as deputy director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. He also served at the US mission to NATO and a variety of other positions in OSD policy. He was acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia. He also worked at the NSC and he started his career on Capitol Hill and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff. So if, Jed, I'm guessing, is a new face for many people in this room, but you can be assured that he is one of the top career policy officials and we're all we're absolutely thrilled that he's in this new position. So over to you, Jed. And thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here with all of you. And thank you, Lee, some Brian, and all of your colleagues for the work that you're doing here, for the work of the Commission and bringing light to these issues. It's just extraordinarily important for us to continue to conduct policy and do policy development with an eye of reflection on the past. And I think that the work you're doing here is absolutely crucial for all of the policy development folks in my department and throughout the US government to be mindful of these issues. So thank you very much for your work here. It's an honor for me to speak with all of you today as we continue to build upon 27 years of work toward the mutual goal of addressing war legacies and strengthening trust and cooperation between our two governments. I want to also start by thanking you for the longstanding commitment and efforts to account for missing US service members, which has contributed to strong support for our bilateral partnership. The mission that is being conducted here is important on so many levels. And it's a privilege for me to be able to share with you some of the thoughts on the relationship between this mission expanding our areas of cooperation and on some broader security interests in the region. To date and since the cessation of the conflict, Vietnam has helped identify more than 700 Americans killed in the war and repatriated them to their families for burial with full military honors. The United States goal is to reciprocate these efforts and we have taken some important steps to do so. Last year marked one such step when Secretary Austin and Minister Yang decided to a new initiative incorporating DOD funded state of the art research from Harvard University to help Vietnam account for and recover the remains of its fallen service members. And so far the results have been very promising. We are particularly sensitive to the fact that we must act quickly as the availability of witnesses, diminishes and Vietnam's landscape and terrain changes. And so to that end just last month during the US Vietnam Defense Policy Dialogue in Hanoi, Assistant Secretary of Defense Eli Ratner provided Vietnam's leadership with a third tranche of updated archival information to support Vietnamese recovery efforts. He also pledged to help Vietnam explore new, smarter technologies to accelerate and streamline search and recovery operations. Likewise we know that the US government's efforts to clean up dioxin, support people with disabilities and remove unexploded ordinance are necessary and important parts of the war legacy mission. Much of the work to address these specific issues is led by the United States Agency for International Development. It's great to be reconnected with Michael Schiffer here after years apart and to hear his personal experience with all this which I have to say is quite touching. Thank you Michael for that. So often the work that USAI is doing is with funds from the Department of Defense and we're very proud of the partnership that we have with USAID. A DOD is working closely through this partnership to support the dioxin remediation. A cleanup efforts included at Da Nang Airport in 2018 and we recently embarked on an important 10-year project to restore Bien Hoa Air Base and its surrounding areas. I'm also proud to note that since 1989 DOD and USAID donated over 100 million dollars to improve the quality of life of more than one million Vietnamese people with disabilities. Moreover to date we have helped remove more than 700,000 pieces of unexploded ordinance while educating hundreds of thousands of Vietnam citizens on risks associated with undedicated minds. During Secretary Austin's visit to Hanoi last year he avowed that the long process to heal the wounds of war is essential to expanding our cooperation and building our partnership. Our cooperation to address war legacies has built a strong foundation for cooperation in many other areas including peacekeeping operations, humanitarian assistance and disaster response, maritime security and military medicine. We are looking at opportunities to expand cooperation even further into the areas of cyber security, defense trade and technology and aviation. Frankly, there is no limit to the opportunities that we have together. We've also worked seamlessly together in the fight against COVID-19. To date the United States has transferred more than 40 million vaccines and critical medical equipment to Vietnam. Whose approach and overall response to the pandemic has been nothing short of exemplary and a model for other countries to follow in the region. Our collective work responding to the COVID-19 pandemic has also paved the way to prevent and control the spread of other infectious diseases and develop sound frameworks for responses to future pandemics and epidemics. Another highlight of our growing relationship is a development of flood resilient infrastructure throughout Vietnam. Together we have built more than 100 flood resilient schools, clinics and bridges and 14 disaster management coordination centers across the country. We are also collaborating extensively to enhance Vietnam's maritime domain awareness and help it protect its sovereign rights through its exclusive economic zone. Notably, these areas of expanded cooperation are vitally important for economic development, peace and global security. They reaffirm our commitment to a strong, prosperous and independent Vietnam. In the spirit of our growing partnership, however, we need to ensure we are being transparent on issues that can create challenges for expanded cooperation, specifically in the Indo-Pacific region. In particular, the United States is sensitive to Vietnam's position in the region and its need to maintain non-escalatory and balanced foreign relations. The United States approach to the Indo-Pacific region is simple. We believe in a free and open Indo-Pacific rooted in international rules and norms. And further, we believe that each country within that region should be independent and free to determine its own course and to promote a system of values that ensures opportunity for even the smallest of countries to thrive free from coercion. The US Vietnam comprehensive partnership has played a key role in advancing these shared strategic goals for the region and that burgeoning relationship was made possible through our foundational work in the war legacy arena. The United States and Vietnam have made extraordinary progress over the last several decades in overcoming past animosities and building a positive partnership that not only benefits our peoples, but the broader Indo-Pacific region and the world in general. While much work remains dedicated people have worked hard to resolve these issues in a way that address the humanitarian concerns while contributing to the pillar of stability and prosperity in the region and setting a positive example for the rest of the world to follow. If there is one message that I would want to leave you with today it is that the United States is engaged and ready to cooperate with you deeper and deeper in more meaningful ways to enhance our bilateral relationship and global security. Thank you very much. Perfect. Thanks, Jed. We have about 10 more minutes for this part of the panel before we we remove a chair and change chairs. So I'm going to go directly to Andrew Wells-Dung who has been curating questions in the first row. Andrew. Thank you. So an opening question for Ambassador Ning and perhaps also for other speakers. Do you think there's an endpoint to the healing from war? How would we know and we've gotten there or are we already there? If not yet what needs to happen now almost 50 years after the end of the war to get to that point. Thanks. I've been warned to say that the paradox, the irony is that the normalization and healing and reconciliation between the Vietnamese inside the country with non-Vietnamese Americans has been moving faster and more smoothly than with the Vietnamese American community. And this is a paradox because you would think, you know, with everything I said about culture, identity, you know, family, native place and that sort of thing, it would help the rapprochement. But as I said, you know, because a few members of the community here are being obsessed by the past, they cannot overcome. I will use the word overcome. If we inside a country we can overcome, then we hope that within the community here they will also overcome and look forward. Anyway, I mentioned it. The younger ones, they are voting with their feet. They are finding opportunities back in Vietnam. And vice versa, young Vietnamese educated in the U.S., sometimes find better opportunities here. These are facts of life. So what I'm saying is it's still a process. It's gone forward a bit faster in the past decade or so. But I think we need to be proactively engaged to push it forward more effectively. And for that, I think as I said, you know, in a bit abstract way, let's fight common grounds. There are common grounds. But for that you need practical initiatives. Yesterday I was having lunch with Erin Steinhauser, the wife of the relatively well-known photographer who's done wonderful, beautiful photographs of Vietnam. And she said that she has started a society to do precisely that. I have spoke online via Zoom with Kenneth Nguyen in California, who was born, obviously, in California, but who has interviewed more than a hundred overseas Vietnamese and mostly Vietnamese American. And he's very curious and supportive of doing things together among Vietnamese, regardless of where you were born or where you live. So I would say that the process needs to continue to be carried forward. But I think it's encouraging, but it means we need to work at it. It won't happen of itself and by itself. And so we hope that our non-Vietnamese American friends will also help. Those that travel regularly to Vietnam, perhaps you could take a few still reticent Vietnamese American along with you. Why not? I'll just take the opportunity to put in one plug for the work we're trying to do here at USIP. We did a series of online dialogues on different war legacies topics over the last year, five of them in total. And, you know, just speak for myself. Perhaps the most interesting one was a youth dialogue. And there was a heavy emphasis on Vietnamese American inclusion. And so people who didn't experience the war, Americans, Vietnamese American, non-Vietnamese Americans, Vietnamese, how do they think about the war? And this is a line of work that we hope to continue and build on with partners in Vietnam. Andrew? Second question for Jed Royal and again others who would like to comment. There are both military and civilian authorities involved in healing the wounds of war and war legacies. How do you see the relationship between those and how can they work better together both in the US and in Vietnam and other countries? Thanks for that question. I think the answer is we have to work symbiotically with each other. There are going to be touch points, some of the tactile elements of this that government is simply just not well positioned to feel and to understand. Those who are deeply committed to this mission need to be we in government need to be making sure that we're soliciting that information from them, building that into the way that we think about our management of resources, about the way that we manage our time, and overall the rhetorical approach that we're taking on the state of bilateral relations and multilateral relations. Just to reflect on the previous question for a moment as well, I do very much hope for healing in this relationship and that we do find an end point because we all want to be whole. But I certainly hope that we don't forget and healing should never come at the expense of forgetting and we need to make sure that we are building in that memory into the way that we think about our role and responsibilities today as government officials and we rely deeply on the civil society to help us understand that and appreciate that as we go through the process. So you can be assured that the Department of Defense is very open to those conversations. I'm very interested in those conversations consistently. Thank you. And sure. Michael unless you want to jump. Yeah I mean I'll just to build off of Jed's last point about the importance of civil society. I guess I'll just offer on the civil military cooperation question when it comes to addressing some of the war legacies that there is another piece of this puzzle which is civil society actors NGOs and local communities. And it's often the civil society actors who are most in touch with the people in the local communities and have the best sense of what their of what their needs are. And so in addition to making sure that our two military and civilian development establishments are working together. Both our interagency here in Washington and its equivalent in Hanoi. We also need to be working effectively with the NGOs and the civil society actors and local communities to make sure that we actually understand and are responsive to their needs when it comes to war legacies and this process for healing. I had one word very very brief about military to military. I think it is helpful to the Vietnamese military to be in contact and exchanges and training with counterparts from the U.S. or from Australia and so on so forth. I have in mind the rather tight close cooperation between our military the peacekeeping operation unit within the Ministry of Defense. Very close cooperation with the their Australian counterpart. And it has helped us deploy very successfully two or three field hospitals in South Sudan. And to me in a sense this is the kind of cooperation that fosters person to person you know less formal or as I understand military discipline and rigor you know perhaps lends itself less to these kinds of contact than training for say peacekeeping operations which I'm really happy that Vietnam has started moving into first with field hospitals and I now see even also with engineering. And so I don't know whether the U.S. is cooperating on that at all. I know that the Australians are and I believe that there is a sort of kind of psychologically speaking it helps our own military enter into less formal or rigid contacts with their international counterpart. Just a thought. We have time for one more. So we have several questions from Vietnamese American participants in person and online saying they're grateful for U.S. Vietnamese cooperation on finding remains and on more legacy issues. So maybe I'll ask Michael Schiffer how can Vietnamese Americans be more involved in the humanitarian assistance and cooperation that USAID is doing and also other agencies? Well I mean to pick up on you know my previous comments I think they can you know the Vietnamese American communities here whether it's reaching out through their members of Congress or engaging with USAID with the Department of Defense, the Department of State can certainly help us in our thinking about where we need to be focused, where the real problems are, and what the issues are that need to be addressed. And that includes both the sort of immediate health or environmental or other needs of people in Vietnam. It also includes you know how we go about continuing to be mindful and aware of the tender spot that will exist that still exists and what will always exist in this relationship so that we can continue to understand each other better, to draw closer and to find forgiveness and closure for a tragic period in both of our histories. Thank you very much. Then we could keep on going clearly but we promise that you'll get back to your offices and also we have an incredible agenda for the next two days. So we're going to soon transition to the second part of our plenary here without a break but first please join me in thanking our fantastic panel. Thank you so much for taking the time. Again in 24 hours tomorrow from 9 to 10 30 online with another incredible panel of non-government and government experts. But I'm thrilled that we could have the second part and we thought it was about to get a little too crowded on the on the stage here with five it turned out so we decided to put it into two parts. But I think one thing if you even just read the title of the day's event and that is dialogue on war legacies and peace in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia we were very intentional here in thinking about what we wanted to do over the course of these two days whether this was all going to be about U.S. Vietnam relations U.S. Vietnam cooperation but you know we very quickly thinking about this you know recognize of course that this was a regional war that touched many people those who live outside of Vietnam during the war and the diaspora today. And so wanted to include the conversation about Laos and Cambodia and we're absolutely thrilled to have two just just incredible people to join our panel to get us kicked off. We're going to start on the far side with Long Ong who we're absolutely thrilled to have here at USIP today I think for the first time. She is a bestselling author, public speaker, activist and co-screenplay writer of First They Killed My Father a critically acclaimed 2017 movie director with Angelina Jolie based on our memoir that is streaming on Netflix. Long started her activism work in 1993 as the community educator for a domestic shelter in the state of Maine and since then she's worked on various campaigns to end violence against women and the use of child soldiers eradicate landmines globally. In 1995 Long made our first trip back to Cambodia and she's returned over 40 times since really devoting herself to helping her native land heal from the traumas of war. In addition to her bestselling book First They Killed My Father Long is also the author of Lucky Child and Lulu in the Sky and a contributor writer on the film Girl Rising directed by the award-winning director Richard Robbins. I just say on a personal that I would never forget and I think anybody who's ever read her book would never forget reading her book and for me it was as a recent college graduate traipsing around the Southeast Asia reading everything I could about the region and her book was one that I could never forget. I'm afraid though I probably read a copy that did not get a royalty back to you. This is the case for many but Long let's start with you and with some initial thoughts and then I'll introduce our next speaker. Thank you so much for that kind introduction. It's very wonderful to be here with you all and Tim I see you for many of us all roads in this room and outside out there all roads lead to Tim Reiser and Patrick Leahy and that was mine as well. So Tim thank you so much for encouraging me to write my book many many years ago and send it to Patrick Leahy my personal hero and so it's wonderful to be here when I was asked Andrew wrote me and said and you've got 10 minutes to share your thoughts about healing from the wounds of war that's like asking somebody to look in the sky and say you've got 10 minutes to tell me how many stars there are in the sky both are impossible to pinpoint however I do think there are some components that are perhaps universal in the issue of healings from the wounds of war as a Buddhist we believe that healing really entails doing the work for body, mind and spirit as a writer I also think that there are components to healings that we should all address especially when we're talking about healings from the wounds of war and these are multi-pronged multi-layers levels or components of healings that that we must serve as a constellation of guiding lights toward the path and in order to even think about healing we have to address first the personal individual healing as well as the national level of healing and also our global responsibility and our global work that we all need to do to address the long tales of war and so the national healing for me and of course in 10 minutes I will just briefly give my thoughts on some of what I think we need to look at on the national level from 1975 to 1979 Cambodia as a country suffer a collective trauma trauma that did not happen to one or three or four of us but trauma that happened to all seven million of us in a country the size of the state of Oklahoma trauma that happened when the Khmer Rouge came into our country on April 17 1975 and in the span of three years eight months and 21 days went on and enacted enacted the Marx's Leninist policy to create a new utopian or grand society in which money and wealth were abolished power was taken from the the poor and the workers of the country and giving to the elites and the children were solutionaries I'm assuming all of us here know a little bit of Cambodia so I won't go into that politics but a survivor us a survivor it was trauma that forced us to live in fear for the next four years of our lives in which our rights one by ones were taken from us first the soldiers came into my country and then they pull out their bullthorns and they start screaming to all of us in the city to leave our homes and if we did not leave the American the Americans and their B-52 metal killing birds would come into the nation bomb our skies and our land and we would all be killed and then we were forced to live in villages for the next four years that were more akin to labor camps and in which every day was a Monday and every Monday a work day and it didn't matter if you were six or 60 you dug trenches you built dams you grew food that then the trucks came in and took the food away came back with guns and arms to support a war you didn't vote for you didn't want you didn't understand but you had no voice that was the trauma you could not speak up anybody and everybody who refused and disagreed with their the Camerish Communist policies review as enemies of the state and the solution for these enemy of the state was to purge or crush them so while we lived in fear and starved one by one the soldiers came and collected the doctors the lawyers the architects the dancers and had them executed en masse and still in a place like that everywhere they looked they saw more enemies more traders so they sent out more soldiers and this time they collected the daughters and the sons and the fathers and the mothers of the people they kill and they had these them executed that was my trauma Cambodia as a country went through this collective trauma together by the end of the Camerish regime on January 7th 1979 when I was nine years old an estimated of 1.7 to 2 million Cambodians would perish from starvation disease hard labor execution out of a population of 7 million people over a quarter of the peoples of the country's population among the victims were both my parents two sisters and 20 other relatives and so I'm very passionate and have been following the tribunal that had been established and long history in complicated history that started in 1997 when the two prime ministers went and asked the UN to help create a hybrid tribunal or a tribunal that eventually after 10 years of negotiation became a hybrid Cambodian UN tribunal to put on trials key leaders of the Camerish for war crimes crimes against humanity and genocide this past September 22nd the tribunal officially closed after it's officially closed which after having spent 16 years and 337 million dollars to convict all of three old men there were observers who were critical of the tribunal itself completely yes a very flawed system 370 million dollars to convict three old men might have agreed with that had I not been a survivor I might have believed that that was money not well spent had I not been a survivor as a survivor the numbers that matter more to me are two millions of 7 million people two parents two sisters 20 relatives and the 5 million survivors who know very little of what happened to their family members as a survivor what the tribunal did was the push to gather information that we did not exist that we did not know where to find and it was the funding and the push to start and led by a DC cam the Cambodian documentation center and their team of researchers that went out the 35 provinces in Cambodia to gather multiple millions of documents that are now gathered in a centralized location so that we now if we need to know when we're ready to know can find this information and also the push of work to map out 20,000 mass graves in a country the size of the state of Oklahoma mass graves once Cambodian kids thought were merely perhaps bomb shelters or craters or ponds that turn out to house and turn out to be the graves of over a million skull of somebody's loved ones majority of them were not killed with bullets but blunt instruments to the back of their heads so as a country Cambodian needed this tribunal for more than anything I think for the residual for the information gather and for the education for the descendants of all the people killed and for the people who survived so that for me is briefly the national level the individual level this is something I know well through my writing and through my work and it's why I went to Cambodia for that first time in 1995 and why I've been back to Cambodia on over 40 trips and why I keep going and keep telling the story of Cambodia healing from the wounds of war requires that we also heal ourselves because are we not part of this world are we not all 8 billion of us part of this world and we are to heal on this great issue we also have to look at our own individual personal story for Americans and for my friends my story is very unimaginable for the Cambodians I know my story is not unique for the 120 or 160 million people in our world have gone through wars my story is not unique I have friends who were once one of eight and are now the only survivor I have friends who are like me when they go back to Cambodia and they look at that sunset it is not beauty they see but horrors and hell I have haunted nightmares in Cambodia that have taken me many years to create new memories to overshadow or at least fade the memories of the war of the last sunset I remember being aware of in Cambodia when the soldiers came for my father and as they walked my father off with guns on their back into the sunset and I looked at that sky and the gods that night had painted this palette of gold magenta red and pink shimmering in its multiple divine colors all I felt was hate in my heart and all I asked was why did the world not see this how was it possible that people in other parts of the world were seeing this beautiful sunset when I only saw hell how was it possible but when I looked at that sun I wished for it to be a weapon that would explode and take me out and take all of us out there was rage there was hurt and that was kind of memories that would take me many decades to build upon for the truth the truth is too hard to bear that in a country the size of the state of Oklahoma we have over 20,000 mass graves majority of them were killed with blunt instruments to the back of their heads smashed to the back of their heads for my friends and I who are Cambodians our wish today and our wish then when I was nine years old continued to be that I hope and pray the soldiers use one of their bullets to end my father's life to make his death quick and painless what do other children in the world prayed for when they were seven what do they wish for for their children I am heartened and happy to say that in 1975 Cambodia had all of two psychiatrists in a country that was Buddhist in nature we believe in astrology and animism and luck that that we now have 60 psychiatrists and that the de-stigmatization of mental issues and mental illness is now much more accepted 60 psychiatrists for 16 million people imagine that I am heartened that still it is shifting and it is changing because when you listen to Cambodia we don't talk about the wars we don't talk about the wars but we will tell you ghost stories and being possessed and monster coming in but if you listen closely you hear residual talks of what these possessions what they look like what they did and lastly very briefly our global healing what we need to do and what we need to admit to ourselves in each other when I came to America and I went to school and I studied Russian history American history Vietnamese history even there was perhaps one whole sentence on Cambodia and it enraged me and it confused me for how is it possible that we don't talk about Cambodia that we don't know Cambodia when in fact Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge might have not happened had the US war not moved over to Cambodia and the bombings bombed Cambodia and dropped half a million tons of bombs onto a neutral country at that time and it succeeded in killing anywhere between 150 to 200,000 Cambodians and destabilized the land pushing the farmers off moving them into the village into the city where there was no food no shelters no safety and then opening up the borders it's lots of discussions on how Sianuq the ruling of the time was ousted from power but we do know London all his replacement opened the war brought in the U.S. and then the war full-fledged came into Cambodia and when the U.S. left Vietnam and left Cambodia the Khmer Rouge went from a couple thousand red-tabbed guerrilla troops in the jungle to many thousands taken over the country that in my class I never heard of Cambodia and in college I had to go and buy my own books about Cambodia and that Cambodia somehow is never a part of Vietnam legacy that should not be we in this global world to talk about global healing has to address the long tails of war and that wars do not stay within borders especially when the borders was broken open when wars went into our country but wars ricochet in its tails does not end when guns fall silent and does not stay when we are in so intertwined and move about all right now I'm coming upon my time what gives me hope is that we are telling our own stories that our Cambodians are telling it as dancers as musicians as writers as activists as policymakers what give me hope on the talk Healing from the Moon of Wars is that the heart our human heart is the most vital organ in the human body and for us many times as it breaks with assistance with education with awareness it has the ability and capability to heal thank you along powerful and inspiring but time is short so we will move on to our next speaker to make sure we have a little bit of time once again Andrew Wells-Dung will be collecting questions online and in person so if you have one in person please please note it down on a piece of paper our last speaker is going to be Sarah Gulabdera who serves as executive director of Legacies of War it's the only international U.S.-based advocacy and educational organization working to address the impacts of the American secret war in Laos and conflicted neighboring countries of Cambodia and Vietnam during the Vietnam War era including the removal of unexploded ordnance and victor and survival assistance before taking on this new role Sarah was a long time volunteer and served on Legacies Board for five years so she was the perfect person to take over and under her leadership U.S. funding for UXO clearance in Laos has reached 45 million dollars the largest level in history and I'll also say that if anybody is running to Sarah you'll know that she's been working with some key members of Congress to really scale this assistance in by considerable orders of magnitude so over to you Sarah would love to hear about your work and how we should think about Laos in this story. Great thank you Brian and thank you so much to USIP for inviting me to be a part of today's very very important discussion thanks especially to my friend Andrew for the invitation and Jenny for all her coordination I don't know where she is but it's such an honor and a pleasure to be with all of you here today I see so many friends in the audience and I know many tuning in online so I was actually born and raised in Laos up to the age of six years old most of my memories childhood memories are very very fun and beautiful ones you know one in particular I remember running in the grounds of the ancient what poo in the southern part you know it was my favorite thing to chase the cats goats and the notorious monkeys you know every time I think about these wonderful childhood memories of growing up you know in in Laos darker memories would creep in you know to my thoughts you see my father was a surgeon and he worked on countless victims of UXO accidents or unexploded ordinance and many of these victims that he worked in numerous villages were around the same age as my siblings and I and I would never remember I would never forget the blood and their cries when my father had to do emergency surgery on them during that time 1990 when I was six years old there was no professional demining organization working in Laos and my parents just saw a very very bleak and just dangerous future for their children so we ended up fleeing to the United States and we landed right here in our nation's capital I remember it being a cold day and for the first time in my life I was riding in a fast-moving car huge highway passing countless majestic monuments the White House the Pentagon as a child I was in awe and I was wonder struck by all of these images I still am today but back then as a six-year-old I had no idea the connection and the deep history between the United States my new home and my birthplace of Laos I had no idea that from 1964 to 1973 the U.S. dropped over 2.5 million tons of ordinance during 580,000 bombing mission over Laos that's equivalent to a plain load of bombs every eight minutes 24 hours a day for nine straight years earning Laos the unwanted title of being the most bombed country per capita in history over 700,000 people were killed maimed or became refugees like my own family who had to flee if that wasn't enough suffering 30% of these bombs fell to detonate on impact leaving millions of cluster bombs the size of a tennis ball scattered all throughout every 18 provinces in Laos and of these 18 provinces 50% are considered severely contaminated meaning farmers can't till their land this hinder progress this hinders a child from walking to school in safety roads building it hinders literally all aspect of Laos life of life in Laos since the war has ended about 25,000 people at least 25,000 people are still being injured are killed by these unexplored ordinance 40% of the victims are children meaning those under the age of 18 you know today as a Lao American I'm proud to represent legacies of war as a new director because the good news is you know there is a solution to this problem and if we work together we can rid Laos of these unexplored ordinance and legacies exist because this is a contemporary issue and it's a humanitarian issue and it deserves our attention constant attention while the war has been over for nearly 50 years people's lives are still impacted today and legacies address this problem in three different ways the first is our grassroots advocacy efforts that Brian mentioned the second is our educational work the third is building the next pipeline of leaders to carry forth the torch because I plan to retire one day so let me talk to you about our advocacy effort you know legacies of war is the leading voice in terms of pushing for increased funding for Laos since our founding in 2004 so back in those days funding was a little under three million dollars to today 45 million that Brian shared the highest funding level in history and funding increases makes a huge impact in 2004 the number of death and injuries was around 300 per year fast forward to the past three years under 50 under 50 that's a huge progress and there's still more work to be done which is why we will continue to work with congressional champions like Senator Leahy and Tim Reiser and others to make sure that funding for Laos continue to increase second I also you know believe that our country can do a lot more than just funding because cluster bombs landmines are indiscriminate weapons they can't tell the difference between a child or a combatant so we need to join in with other NATO members and ban these weapons you know I hope that in the next two years or so Congress and President Biden will exceed to the mine ban treaty as well as the convention on cluster munition taking a stance that the U.S. is a leader in humanitarian issue that we will join the hundred other countries that have already exceeded to these two international treaties the second piece of our work you know I love what you said about not learning though I don't love that you didn't learn about component history but while the American secret war is a part of American history it is not taught in American schools so legacies of war addressed this in several different ways the first one is our podcast which I hope you all will tune in the executive producer of this is in this room Alina Intelie this is very short 15 to 20 minutes interviews with demining partners like mine advisory groups as well as survivors as well as environmental experts talking you know about the importance of mine action work in very short simple to listen to clips the second is one that I'm particular very proud of we call this the legacies library and this is a repository of information all related to the American secret war in the forms of documentaries books articles and other and hopefully in the future when we build greater capacity at legacies of war we can also include more on Cambodian history and Vietnam history as well our crowning jewel in our legacies library we call them the originals this is a collection of illustrations and and written testimony from survivors and victims of the U.S. bombings themselves this is the only primary source documentation that exists from survivors from this time period and we have this house at legacies of war I just want to share briefly one of the images just because you know I think like many of you I've been following the war in Ukraine and this one you know exactly why I chose it but this is an image of a burning school building with fires all around it and the caption that's on this particular illustration reads the school was hit and burned there were many people in the school who died but I didn't know who because I wasn't courageous enough to look I was afraid that the airplanes would shoot me that's written by a 16-year-old child watching his school burn so we preserve these for future generation and all of the educational content that legacies of war has is free of charge because we believe that everyone should know about this history especially Americans history, storytelling has a way of healing has a way of allowing victims and survivors to reclaim that narrative and it's also a form of justice the very final piece of our work that I want to highlight is our investment in the next generation of young leaders who want to take mine action who want to continue to preserve and share this history who also are doing amazing things interning at legacies of war we partner with a variety of different universities all across the United States one of which my dear friend Paul from the University of Dayton Human Rights Center has an intern with legacies and this year I'm particularly proud that we're able to the first time in history bring an intern with us on our annual study trip to Laos this year this is a huge huge you know investment in the next generation so that they see firsthand experience of what it's like for D-minors to work in the field to see programs that assist victims and survivors so I'm really looking forward to the trip this year in closing I just want to say that the legacies of war are immeasurable and the pain stands spans generations and there's many many forms and healing is slow but healing is possible with the right actionable I'm proud of my country the United States of America for being the largest single funder globally in demining efforts the United States invest about 36% of all funding for demining work globally in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam since 1993 we invested $657 million and I hope that members of Congress and leaders will continue to invest in Southeast Asia and grow this pot of funding so we can find those bombs before a child does so thank you thank you Sarah thank you Sarah you know it's it's clear that that for on the strategic side of things Congress definitely is increasingly focused on Southeast Asia but making sure we have a rich holistic picture of the situation our history what it takes to overcome it is what you're doing is just incredibly important on so many dimensions Andrew I know we have time for a couple more questions and you've I've seen a lot of cards making their way to you yeah I'd like to thank you both for sharing both personally and nationally and globally about the meaning of feeling from war and this comes I think to the heart of USIP's mission as a as a peace building organization USIP works both in countries that are affected by conflict and coming out of conflict and also in the US on peace education and we have one question from the audience that both of you were discussing the lack of coverage of Laos and Cambodia in US schools what can educators do to make students more aware and to take action about healing from war be low first they can teach my book that would be really helpful I mean it's thankfully they a lot of them are teaching my books on different university colleges in my school but I do think also that I always say to students if you have five minutes listen to NPR you know listen to actual real news and then you if you have 11 minutes listen to morning edition but we need to really get our students to pay attention to real news and you know my books or Ishmael Bay or you know Big Toronto, B-Vang many of where stories are you know where stories have real relevance to human life to human beings and not just snippets and not just sound bites and I really do think it is it is so important that we teach young people the the the you know the just the importance of learning real news relevant news truthful news as opposed to social media news and because everything starts with an education and everything starts with knowing what is true and what is false and um so for me there's there's just really start with education yeah um you know one resource that I would recommend is Legacies Library it's a free online LegaciesAboard.org that teachers professors can access but I think the main issue here is that it's systematic right like this isn't taught I mean I went to school here in the US and we maybe spent a day if not you know if a day and a half on the Vietnam War and Laos was a footnote if we were lucky but it's educators not knowing themselves sometimes right so we can't blame them but having broader outreach you know organizations doing the work like ourselves and teachers having that interest to make outreach to find curriculum that we have you know free of charge but you know I would encourage people to talk to one another about what you learn you know or what you know and encourage people to talk to their members of Congress you know and to get this into the school system I mean and certainly the the political legacy of the Vietnam War in the United States is very complicated so there's a lot that needs to be done and hopefully with some more distance we can teach the war understand the war in a more sophisticated way and I think part of doing that is thinking broader and geographically as well so hopefully there there could be opportunities yeah I'll add one last piece to this is that the war has impact many many different segments of Americans as well as you know 1.5 generations like myself you know being able to bravely tell the stories like you right from a personal perspective is powerful and it also allows people to hear from someone who has that live experience but there are many others you know I'll just kind of share one of our amazing board member Jessica Pierce Rotundi wrote a book What We Inherit you know and this is about finding the place where her uncles plain crash in Laos right that is a whole different segment of the American public that has been touched by this secret war so more people need to write right and I also just think what happened in Cambodia right bake dance you know whatever it is that is your expression just to tell your story but I also think it's so important for us one we need to learn about Cambodia and Laos and its connection to the global world but also that what happened in Cambodia did not happen in a vacuum what happened in Cambodia did not just happen to Cambodians the Khmer Rouge killed 1.72 million people those were crimes against humanity war crimes genocide not only crimes against Cambodians so those were crimes against all 8 billions of us and therefore we need to know because this whole history you know human history of never again since world war two never again has become again and again and again in in Bosnia and Cambodia and Rwanda and we don't learn our whole history if we don't learn our complete history we will keep on making and repeating the same darn mistakes and really we can do better than that we are humanities we are human beings we have free will we have potentials we can send people to again now to the moon for however many times we are it until we can leave this and go to Mars and colonize there this is it and so we have to learn our global history because what happens in Cambodia is not that far to what happened here and really is it that unimaginable when we read about Afghanistan Iraq Pakistan of young people who strap on weapons and we're seeing it in America all the violence taking place here when you were raised in hate and you are encouraged to live in hate and you are breathed to think hate 24-7 on a daily basis as a former child soldier when my parents were killed and the soldier put guns half my body's weight a third my body's height and told me to hurt and told me if I didn't hurt you first you would hurt me I have no doubt if the war hadn't ended I would have been a very efficient soldier but I am actually an activist for peace because people step out of their ways lent us a helping hand and helped me to not only survive the war but to thrive in peace and that is our work to create peace we have to help people get hate out of them heal their heart and thrive in peace and we can do that we can do so much and I absolutely this is what why I'm so author is I know we can do it we can do it because it happened to me I was the most hateful little kid you could have met when you when I was young and I would have no doubt small but I could probably take a lot of people out at least I believe that I probably could but you know I'm choosing to use my voice differently because I was taught and shown by Patrick Leahy by Tim Reiser by Bobby Mueller by Andrew to do things differently to create peace and not fight war long Sarah we're honored that you're able to join us we thank you for taking the time I think we've had an incredible kickoff to our our two days here a diversity of views of which is flashback and topics of which is flashback 45 minutes ago when Michael Jett and Besser and then we're sitting up here so please join me in thanking our two panelists again reminder we'll be online tomorrow morning as well so thank you so much