Can’t put my head around it

September eleventh. 911. Twenty-three years ago. So long ago. So tragic. Hard to believe that there are young people out there today who weren’t alive on that day.

I won’t be flying today, but I will be flying on Friday the 13^th. I’m not superstitious. And at least there won’t be a full moon.

There are a lot of thoughts and images running through my mind. I watched the movie “The Killing Fields” yesterday and have been reading all I can about that time in Cambodian history.

I just can’t put my head around it. Sure, I was only twelve years old when the Khmer Rouge overran Cambodia and instituted its brutal form of communism. But all I remember hearing about in the 1970s was Vietnam. Shoot, I even wrote a novel about the Vietnam War. So, I was aware of at least some news when I was entering my teens. But it sounds like the Cambodian genocide was swept under the rug at the time. 

Here I am, about to fly halfway around the world to learn, firsthand, about the plight of the Cambodian people fifty years ago. I think of meeting someone my age, who was also twelve years old at that time, and instead of worrying about what they were going to wear to school on picture day, they were just trying to stay alive.

As I posted the end of August, there have been many genocides over the decades. When will the madness end?