TRĂNG HUYẾT - Trang 1247

a more dangerous place than ever before. The bitter warfare in Iraq
triggered by the American inspired invasion of early 2003 is being
compared increasingly with the Vietnam war of the 1960s and 1970s. In
any event terrorism and killing for political and religious reasons is more
widespread globally than ever before.
The whole planet, it seems, now lives daily in anticipation of some new
massive ‘terrorist’ outrage. In these circumstances it is vital that the
growing number of people around the world who are wishing fervently for
a permanent end to all warfare and carnage should believe there are reasons
to feel encouraged. It is important for us all to have grounds for trusting in
a better future and not become haunted by fear.
The purpose at the highest level of republishing this expanded novel about
the long and bitter wars in Vietnam in the second part of the twentieth
century is to remind us of the terrible and futile tragedy of all wars,
particularly ill-judged wars. Both Vietnam and Iraq fall into that sad
category. Everybody suffers in such tragic times and nobody truly
triumphs. War makes us all victims. Now it is vital for our world to move
forward to a state of being in which we can solve all problems among
peoples and nations without recourse to violence and killing. It is equally
vital to heal the terrible physical and psychological wounds of the past to
help create a better peaceful future for us all.
SAIGON when first published in 1982 to my surprise and delight became
an international bestseller in 15 countries and nine languages. Very
gratifyingly it has already been used in classrooms in Vietnam and in the
United States for educating young army and navy officer cadets – The
Peoples Army Defence University in Hanoi and the American Naval
Academy at Annapolis. Nguyen Uoc first read the novel in English when
he found himself in an Indonesian refugee camp after fleeing by boat from
Vietnam in the late 1980s. He said he wept on reading parts of it. Much
later, he decided to translate and expand the novel on his own initiative
because he felt that the story with the additions of historical fact and some
fiction that he could make as ‘an insider’ would cause Vietnamese readers