What are ya gonna do??

Well, we had a day off of school yesterday and I spent all day on my butt staring at the computer screen. It about drove me crazy. So then today I only had one class to go to, and we got out 30 mins early (1 1/2 hr class) and so I came home and was researching stuff for my paper for English. We have to write a paper about "The Other." Someone who has had an experience I haven't so I decided to write it on my friend Boo Bah. She is in her 30's and lives in Grand Island. So I decided to look up some background information so I had a better idea about what she was talking about. When she was about 7 years old her and her family left Laos when the communists were taking over and walked to Thailand. After that a church back in NE sponsered them to be brought to the US. So as I was researching I found information I had never known. I didn't know anything about "The Secret War" (haha imagine that) that occured DURING the Vietnam war. I was shocked to learn that when they were discovered as helping the US pulled out. The politicians afraid for their jobs backed out of the war, leaving the people in Laos to fend for themselves. (They had trained the Hmongs and were fighting along with them, so these people were automatically targeted by the government). They were forced to hide in the jungle and to this day there are still people hiding in the jungle, because those that turn themselves in are never heard of again and forgotten about, and those that remain in the jungle are hunted and killed. However as in the video that I watched we are about to do almost the same thing in Iraq. We started a war, we've stirred things up and now we are going to back out of this war. Ok that was off topic, Laos is the most bombed country in history because of "The Secret War". Innocent people were killed in an effort to stop communism, but then we backed out and let communism take over. It's really sad the things I learned today. I saw pictures of people who had lost limbs, someone who lost half their face b/c it was shot off, I read about the refugee camps in Thailand and how they were like prisons with no sanitation. It was terrible. And it definitely made me sad. I wish there was something we could do about it and help the people that are hiding for their lives. I can't imagine living in those circumstances. Also, how come after so many years "The Secret War" is still fairly secret? We don't talk about it in school, it's hard to come by on the internet unless published by non-American citizens. We should learn from history, and how do we do that if we don't know about it? If only there was more that we could do to help the Lao people.

Anyway I ended up spending all day staring at my computer screen again, and work called and told me not to come in, so all I have left is my flute sectionals. Then clean checks and some last minute homework :)

Here's the video I watched: