… However, the child who has survived the initial stages of a burn would be a highly suitable candidate for treatment elsewhere. Since most of the burns are the result of napalm or white phosphorus, they are deep, and subsequent deformities and contractures are usual. These deformities, which interfere with function and offer extreme psychological obstacles for social read-justment, can be relieved by well-known and standardized plastic surgical procedures. These operations can ideally be done in a country such as the United States where facilities are adequate and where the environment is conducive to total rehabilitation.
The child would not have to lie in a bed with two or three others; he would not be exposed to parasitic infestation or sepsis or diarrhea or epidemics which are now prevalent in most of the Vietnamese civilian hospitals. He would be out of a war-torn country and could heal his psychological wounds as well.
… While one is instinctively reluctant to think of taking a child away from familiar surroundings, family and friends, for medical treatment and rehabilitation, these phrases are empty in the present context; we are talking of children whose homes are destroyed, who may be orphaned, whose “familiar surroundings” are the hell of disease, famine and flame attendant on modern warfare…. Further, the choice is not between care at home and better care in the United States, but in realistic terms, between token care or often, no care at all, and adequate care.
To Dr. Goldwyn’s analysis can be added that of Dr. Richard Stark, past president of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, who agreed in a speech on October 3 that plastic surgical facilities in Vietnam are “presently inadequate.”
THERE IS, of course, an official United States position on the use of napalm in Vietnam. The Department of the Air Force set it forth on September 1,1966, in a letter to Senator Robert Kennedy:
A Vietnamese mother, herself and her child hungry, begs in the street, presenting her infant as appeal for aid.
“… there is the forgotten legion of Vietnamese children in the cities and provincial towns—clinging together desperately in small packs, trying to survive. Usually they have threadbare clothing, and sometimes they go naked; they go unwashed for months, perhaps forever; almost none have shoes.”
“In Sancta Maria Orphanage, I frequently became involved in trying, with a small amount of soap and a jar of Noxzema, to alleviate the festering infections that seemed to grow around every minor bile and cut.”
He was deformed by polio, but he stood in front of Saigon’s City Hall every day—shining shoes, staying alive.
The “pacification” program undertaken by the government of Premier Ky involves the relocation of large numbers of refugees from their ancestral homes to “New Life Hamlets The “hamlet” pictured here was built on top of a huge garbage mound.
“… I never left the tiny victims without losing composure. The initial urge to reach out and soothe the hurt was restrained by the fear that the ash-like skin would crumble in my fingers.”
“The shelter child receives little if any education. Crossed strands of barbed wire form the perimeter of his living world…“
“About eight per cent of Vietnam’s population live in refugee shelters or camps; about three quarters of the shelter population, or over 750,000 persons, are children under 16. In shelters like Qui Nhon, pictured here, there is unimaginable squalor and close confinement…”
“Despite the gradual process of animalization, in their striving to maintain a semblance of dignity, they are beautiful.”
Napalm is used against selected targets, such as caves and reinforced supply areas. Casualties in attacks against targets of this type are predominantly persons involved in Communist military operations.
I am compelled to wonder what military functions were being performed by the thousands of infants and small children, many of whom I saw sharing hospital beds in Vietnam, and a few of whom appear in photographs accompanying this article.
In the brutal inventory of maimed and killed South Vietnamese children one must also include those who are the helpless victims of American defoliants and gases. The defoliants used to deprive the Viet Cong of brush and trees that might afford cover are often the common weed-killers 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. Yet the pilots spraying from the air cannot see if women and children are hiding in the affected foliage. These chemicals “can be toxic if used in excessive amounts,” says John Edsall, M.D., Professor of Biology at Harvard.
The U.S. has admitted it is using “non-toxic” gas in Vietnam. The weapon is a “humane” one, says the government, because it creates only temporary nausea and diarrhea in adult victims. Yet a New York Times editorial on March 24,1965 noted that these gases “can be fatal to the very young, the very old, and those ill with heart and lung ailments…. No other country has employed such a weapon in recent warfare.” A letter to the Times several days later from Dr. David Hilding of the Yale Medical School backed up this point: “The weakest, young and old, will be the ones unable to withstand the shock of this supposedly humane weapon. They will writhe in horrible cramps until their babies’ strength is unequal to the stress and they turn blue and black and die …” Once again, the children of Vietnam are the losers.
About eight per cent of Vietnam’s population live in refugee shelters or camps; about three quarters of the shelter population, or over 750,000 persons, are children under 16. In shelters like that of Qui Nhon, which I visited, there is unimaginable squalor and close confinement. There were 23,000 in that camp when I was there, and I have been told that the figure has since tripled.
Father So, unquestioned leader of these thousands of refugees in Qui Nhon and in the rest of Binh Dinh province, works for 20 hours a day to provide what relief he can, particularly for the orphaned children. These usually live in a hovel-like appendage to the main camp, frequently without beds. Food and clothing are scarce.
As So’s guest, I attended with him a meeting with Dr. Que, the South Vietnamese High Commissioner of Refugees, and with the USAID Regional and Provincial Representatives and the Coordinator of Refugees. So reminded the AID officials of their promise to supply badly needed food; the province representative replied that 500 pounds of bulgar had been given to the district chief with instructions that it was to be delivered to So for distribution in the camp.
So said nothing in reply. Later, he laughed softly and said to me that neither he nor the children would ever see that bulgar. The district chief had more lucrative connections.
THE SHELTER CHILD receives little if any education. Crossed strands of barbed wire form the perimeter of his living world. There are no sanitary facilities—those in camps near a river are lucky. Even shelters with cement floors have no privies for as many as 160 families. Plague and cholera increasingly threaten the health of the children (and of course the adults, though to a lesser degree), and I noticed an amazing amount of body infection on the youngsters, ranging from minor to extremely serious in nature. Their level of resistance is quite low, and the filth, combined with the absence of hygienic knowledge, is so universal that mosquito and ant bites quickly become infected. There is not usually medical help for the children of these camps. Tuberculosis and typhoid are evident, with periodic local epidemics; about one per cent of all Vietnamese children will have TB before reaching the age of 20.
Many of the shelter children show traces of the war. I particularly remember a tiny girl whose arm had been amputated just below the elbow, and who followed me from one end to the other. The children also display a reaching out, not in a happy but in a sort of mournful way. The shy ones frequently huddle together against the side of a hut and one can always feel their eyes upon him as he moves about. No one ever intended for them to live like this—but there they are. One small child provided for me their symbol. He sat on the ground, a’way from the others. He was in that position when I entered and still there several hours later when I left. When I approached, he nervously fingered the sand and looked away, only finally to confront me as I knelt in front o
f him. Soon I left and he remained as before—alone.
Another 10,000 children—probably more by now—live in the 77 orphanages in South Vietnam. I lived for a time in Sancta Maria orphanage (in an area officially described as influenced by Viet Cong, and off limits to American military personnel). I arrived there during a rest hour, to find the children in a second floor dormitory, two to a bed, others stretched out on the floor. Their clothing consisted of only the barest necessities, though Sancta Maria was better oil than other institutions I visited.
Here, too, food was scarce and there was a shortage or a complete absence of basic supplies such as soap, gauze, towels and linen. I devoted some evenings to teaching elementary English vocabulary, and I was impressed by the amount of motivation displayed by some of these children despite, the horrors that frequently characterized their past—and present. Their solemnity was very real, however, as was their seeming general inability to play group games.
In most orphanages, as in the refugee shelters, there is no schooling at all, but despite this and the shortages of food and other supplies there is a growing tendency in Vietnam for parents to turn children over to the camps or to abandon them. Mme. LaMer, UNICEF representative to the Ministry of Social Welfare, expressed alarm over this tendency while I was in Vietnam; it seems to be one more example of the rapid deterioration of family structure because of the war. Officials told me that infant abandonment has become so common that many hospitals are now also struggling to provide facilities for orphan care.
FINALLY, THERE IS the forgotten legion of Vietnamese children in the cities and provincial towns—clinging together desperately in small packs, trying to survive. Usually they have at best threadbare clothing, and sometimes they are naked; they go unwashed for months—perhaps forever; almost none have shoes. They live and sleep on the filthy streets, in doorways and alcoves. Despite the gradual process of animalization, in their striving to maintain a semblance of dignity, they are beautiful.
On a few occasions I took an interpreter into the streets with me and spent hours sifting histories (often, feeling that my presence might inhibit the response, I stayed away and let the Vietnamese carry out the interview).
Some had come to the cities with their mothers, who turned to prostitution and forced the children into the streets. Others, abandoned in hospitals or orphanages or placed there while ill, had merely run away. Still others had struggled in on their own from beleaguered hamlets and villages. Once on the streets, their activities range from cab flagging, newspaper peddling and shoe shining to begging, selling their sisters and soliciting for their mothers. I saw five- and six-year-old boys trying to sell their sisters to GI’s; in one case the girl could not have been more than 11 years old.
WITH MISERY COMES DESPAIR, and one of its most shocking forms was called to my attention by Lawson Mooney, the competent and dedicated director of the Catholic Relief Services program in Vietnam. Mooney said he had noticed, between the autumn of 1965 and the spring of 1966, a fantastic increase in the rate of adolescent suicide.
I began to check the newspapers every day—and indeed, there was usually one, frequently more than one suicide reported among the city’s children. In several cases, group suicides were reported: a band of young people, unable to face the bleakness and misery of their existence, will congregate by agreement with a supply of the rat poison readily available in Vietnam, divide it, take it, and die.
“Many of these suicides,” Lt. Col. Nguyen Van Luan, Saigon Director of Police, told Eric Pace of the New York Times, “are young people whose psychology has been deformed, somehow, by the war.” Van Luan went on to say that in the Saigon-Cholon area alone, 544 people attempted suicide during the first seven months of 1966—many of them, of course, successfully. In that one section of the country—with about IB per cent of the total population—that is an average of 78 a month. Last year, Luan noted, the monthly average had been about 53, so the increase was about 50 per cent. “You must remember,” Luan went on, “that these are young people who have never known peace. They were more or less born under bombs.”
These are the “familiar surroundings” away from which American policy will not transport the horribly burned children of Vietnam, the “frightened little kids” of whom White House aide Chester Cooper says that humanitarians want to take “halfway around the world and dump them there in a strange, alien society.” One must agree with his further comment that “it is a very ghastly thing.” Clearly, the destruction of a beautiful setting is exceeded only by the atrocity that we daily perpetuate upon those who carry within them the seeds of their culture’s survival. In doing this to them we have denied our own humanity, and descended more deeply than ever before as a nation, into the depths of barbarism.
It is a ghastly situation. And triply compounded is the ghastliness of napalm and phosphorus. Surely, if ever a group of children in the history of man, anywhere in the world, had a moral claim for their childhood, here they are. Every sickening, frightening scar is a silent cry to Americans to begin to restore that childhood for those whom we are compelled to call our own because of what has been done in our name.
William F. Pepper is Executive Director of the Commission on Human Rights in New Rochelle, New York, a member of the faculty at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, New York and Director of that college’s Children’s Institute for Advanced Study and Research. On leave of absence last spring, he spent six weeks in South Vietnam as an accredited journalist.
In hospitals, wrapping paper and newspapers are commonly used as blankets, even as bandages, being the only material available.
The
Committee of
Responsibility
“One tiny child provided for me their symbol. He was about three years old and he sat on the ground away from the others. He ms in that position when I entered and still there several hours later when I left. When I approached he nervously fingered the sand and looked away, only to finally confront me as I knell in front of him. Soon. I left and he remained as before—alone.”
THE COMMITTEE OF RESPONSIBILITY is an American voluntary organization composed of physicians, surgeons, and interested laymen, which has as its mission the saving of war burned Vietnamese children. The members of the committee feel a deep responsibility, as Americans, for the suffering in Vietnam and see it as an elementary act of justice to work for the welfare of the children who are the innocent victims of American power. The committee has invited all Americans to participate in this work.
The committee lists 105 persons as its sponsors and members. Many of the members have a special professional interest in the care of children. Dr. Herbert Needleman, who is the chairman of the committee’s board of directors, is a psychiatrist. He teaches at Temple University Health Sciences Center in Philadelphia. Dr. Albert Sabin, the developer of the oral polio vaccine, is a member, as are Helen B. Taussig, originator of the blue-baby operation, and professor emeritus of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; and Reverend John C. Bennett, president of the Union Theological Seminary in New York.
Others of the members are simply concerned citizens. Among them are Mrs. Martin Luther King, wife of the civil rights leader, and the noted author Martha Gellhorn.
The Committee of Responsibility plans to make facilities available for the treatment and rehabilitation of war burned Vietnamese children in the United States. In this effort the committee hopes to enlist the aid of physicians, particularly plastic and general surgeons, secure hospital beds and obtain community support for temporary foster home care.
The aim of the committee is to provide plastic surgery and prosthetics treatment not available in Vietnam to children who have been badly burned and disfigured by napalm or who have been injured and lost limbs in the fighting. Six or seven first-class hospitals in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Los Angeles have indicated willingness to provide facilities. In addition, the committee hopes to raise three million dollars for treatment of the children.
In o
rder to make possible the transportation of war burned Vietnamese children to treatment centers in the United States, the Committee of Responsibility is attempting to enlist the aid of voluntary and government agencies in Vietnam and the United States, obtain U.S. consent for the entry of the Vietnamese children into this country, and secure space in U.S. government aircraft.
The committee hopes for permission to fly the children here on military aircraft, but if this permission is not granted, they will pay for commercial air transportation.
The committee intends to bring children in special groups selected from specific areas in Vietnam to minimize any emotional problems caused by coming to a strange country. Each group will be accompanied by a responsible Vietnamese adult, and each group will remain together throughout treatment.
They make no distinction between children wounded by one side or another. Children will be selected solely on the basis of medical need. “We are not here to establish who is guilty,” Dr. Sabin said, “we’re here to repair the damage.”
The committee is appealing directly to the American people for funds and support. Requests for information and contributions should be sent to:
THE COMMITTEE OF RESPONSIBILITY
777 United Nations Plaza
New York, N.Y. 10017
Color photographs by David McLanahan.
Black & White photography courtesy Terre des Hommes.
An
Afterword
by the Editors
NO AMERICAN can read this article by Mr. William Pepper and not be horrified by the atrocides that are daily committed in our name.
The war in Vietnam has reached its ultimate and most barbarous stage, with the massiveness of American firepower being brought to bear in rural areas occupied largely by women and children.
The Plot to Kill King Page 46