Le Ly meets with Anh and two officials, Long and Xa, for dinner. They discuss the future of Vietnam, the view Americans have on their country, and what they need to do to improve Vietnam's condition. The officials tell Le Ly their goal in fighting the war. "Our goal was to make Vietnam a sovereign nation and leave it better off trhan before. We succeeded in the first. Our task now is to succeed at the second. To do that we'll need the help of every Vietnamese, wherever in the world they live" (267). They also need the Americans help to achieve their goal. If Americans are going to help, they must let go of the past and accept that the war in Vietnam is over. Rumors about Vietnam spread among the Vietnemese who have immigrated to America, examples are Vietnam was sold to the soviets and that most of what they know of Vietnam comes from the war. Most Americans believe that Vietnam is full of terror squads, secret police, death camps, and starving peasants.
Le Ly questions the officials about why they invade Cambodia. They responded that it was to protect Vietnamese borders and to prevent the Chinese from dividing the country again. By using the allusion below they described what their country would be like if they were defeated by the Chinese.
"There would be a massacre thei likes of which the world has never seen-- even the Nazi Holocaust and Khmer Killing Fields would seem tame by comparison!" (269).
The Holocaust was a terrible movement by Adolf Hitler. It resulted in killing of a tremendous number of Jews. The movement began with prohibiting the Jews from local parks, making them register their property, and firing from government jobs. Jews were forced out of their homes and forced to live in the ghettos of the city or go to concentration camps. To read articles about the Holocaust go to http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/. For statistics on the number of Jewish people killed go to http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-statistics.htm. For Holocaust facts go to http://history1900s.about.com/od/holocaust/a/holocaustfacts.htm.
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