Tet

I knew people who became very upset after Tet. They lost people very close to them, but I was too young to understand why they drew away from me. It was fully that I wasnt having the same experience. Even my Mom lost people she cared about deeply, who probably would have been very benificial and dear to me in the future, but as I had not met them and didnt even know about them it had no immediate effect on me. We teach our kids to talk about patience and spend our childhoods making excuses for others even if the adults all around us dont believe in those excuses any more. We are told never to blame anyone for anything, but this can become a mess during a war, and when you didnt share a sorrow with everyone, you are from a culture that practices forgivness in childhood, and unfortunately you also share some colors with the agressor, it causes social distancing. Later events were colored by this situation, but it still has to be, because adults cant reasonably make up as many excuses for people or cultivate such a high degree of flexibility as children can. When you are an adult and you have to place blame and choose sides, this flexibility even if the practice has been abandoned stays with you for life and allows you to stop in the midst of battle to protect a true defector, many of whom have been the difference between winning and losing a war, and no country or movement can deny that though not all get to benifit from the abiltiy to see when it happens.