Can’t put my head around it

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

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

There are a lot of thoughts and imagesrunning through my mind. I watched the movie “The Killing Fields” yesterday andhave 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 andinstituted its brutal form of communism. But all I remember hearing about inthe 1970s was Vietnam. Shoot, I even wrote a novel about the Vietnam War. So, Iwas 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 theworld to learn, firsthand, about the plight of the Cambodian people fifty yearsago. 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 pictureday, they were just trying to stay alive.

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