IOUs
One of the movies most seared into my memory over the last 25 years, is "The Killing Fields", about the real-death Killing Fields in Cambodia. As this Wikipedia entry describes the movie:
"The Killing Fields (1984) is an award-winning British film drama about the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.
It is based on the experiences of three journalists: Dith Pran, a Cambodian, Sydney Schanberg, an American, and Jon Swain, a Briton. The film, which won three Academy Awards, was directed by Roland Joffé and stars Sam Waterston as Schanberg..."
What made me think of this today, was the passing away of Dith Pran this weekend, as the New York Times reports:
"Dith Pran, a photojournalist for The New York Times whose gruesome ordeal in the killing fields of Cambodia was re-created in a 1984 movie that gave him an eminence he tenaciously used to press for his people’s rights, died in New Brunswick, N.J., on Sunday. He was 65 and lived in Woodbridge, N.J.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, which had spread, said his friend Sydney H. Schanberg."
Dith Pran's story is a heart-moving one of how a local citizen helped American citizens in a vicious conflict, suffered unimaginable consequences for picking the "wrong" side, and escaped his captors for a new life eventually in America.
This story is all the more important to remember in current times.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who've helped our military and civilians in Iraq the last five years potentially face a similar fate in coming months, as we bring our involvement in the country to a close, one way or another.
Dith Pran's story is a reminder of our obligations to those local brave souls and their families, long after we've withdrawn from conflicts and begun to forget them.
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