LE QUANG NHAT/The Associated PressThese old American soldiers recovered from the physical scars of combat long ago. Holt is chairman of the San Antonio Spurs basketball team. But last week, they visited a place where people still have fresh wounds from the Vietnam War, which ended nearly 35 years ago.
They came to Quang Tri Province, which is still littered with landmines and unexploded ordnance that routinely kill and maim people working in the rice fields. Their visit was organized by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, which built the Washington, D.C., monument that lists the names of the 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam.
The fund sponsors Project RENEW, a nonprofit organization that helps Quang Tri residents like Pham Quy Tuan, 41, whose left hand and right arm were blown off by a leftover American projectile he found in a rice paddy four months ago.
According to the fund, more than 350,000 tons of landmines and explosives remain scattered across the country. Quang Tri province was the most heavily bombed and shelled during the war, and 92 percent of it remains contaminated with explosives.
Since 1975, when troops from the communist north triumphed, more than 100,000 Vietnamese have been killed or injured by landmines or unexploded ordnance, according to the Vietnamese government.
When Tuan's wounds are more fully healed, Project RENEW will see if he can be fitted with a pair of prosthetic limbs.
"Nothing would make me happier than a pair of artificial hands," he said. "I'm helpless."
Source:dallasnews.com/
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