Endorsement

     Sibylle Barlow, Co-Clerk of Peace and social Concerns, and James Varner of Vassalboro Quarterly Meeting brought us a concern for support of a project creating a new Orthotic/Prosthetic Rehabilitation Center in Quang Ngai, Vietnam. Orono Monthly Meeting, Vassalboro Quarterly Meeting, and the Yearly Meeting Peace and Social Concerns Committee have adopted minutes supporting the projects.

     Roger Marshall, who was a Prosthetist/Orthotist at Quang Ngai during the Indochina war,described the urgent need there today for prosthetic and orthopedic services to patients who are war victims, post war mine victims, polio or leprosy victims, or who have congenital deformities related to toxic defoliant spraying.

     Roger Marshall has formed a fund raising and advisory committee to create a new orthotic/prosthetic rehabilitation center in Quang Ngai, with the organizational support of the well established Fund for Reconciliation and Development, the spiritual blessing of the American Friends Service Committee, and the cooperation of appropriate Vietnamese government agencies.

     New England Yearly Meeting gladly adds its endorsement to this project, commending it as a needed witness for peace, justice, and international understanding. Roger Marshall, a member of Orono Monthly Meeting, is particularly suited to guide this project.

     We have not forgotten the Indochina war, and the destruction rained upon people in Quang Ngai and throughout Indochina by the American military. The proposed Quang Ngai center alone cannot erase the destructive effects of that military action, but will improve the lives of a number of people. It deserves generous support.

New England Friend Newsletter Article, Fall 1999

NEYM endorses new prosthetic center in Vietnam.
     From 1968 to 1972, I had the privilege of working with the AFSC Quaker medical team in Quang Ngai Provincial hospital, Vietnam, as the senior prosthetist-orthotist and instructor to some 20 young Vietnamese students.  We treated many hundreds of civilians amputees and spinal cord injury patients, 90% of whom were direct casualties of the war, fitting them  with prosthetic arms, legs and braces.  A high percentage of these were children, who often in their youthful exuberance, wandered into areas heavily mined.

     One such child was Le Trinh, a four-year-old girl whose right leg had been blown off at the hip.  Unlike others who did not survive, the war, Le Trinh lived to become married and have a child of her own.  Somehow she found me in Maine and wrote asking if I could help provide her with a new prosthesis, as she had to get around with a crutch, having outgrown her childhood prosthesis.

     My wartime experiences have never left my memory, and as I have returned to Vietnam a number of times, I managed to arrange for Le Trinh to travel south to Qui Nhon, where I would be teaching a course with another certified prosthetist and orthotist.  This was not only a chance to help Le Trinh again, but also to teach our students how to make and fit one of the most difficult prostheses.  When Le Trinh donned her new limb, she set off walking with a beautiful smile.

     Since the end of the war, according to statistics from the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA), some 38,248 people have been killed in the first 23 years after the war by unexploded ordnance.  Another 60,064 have been dreadfully injured.  There is still an estimated 300,000 tons of this ordnance around, some 2% of the estimated 15 million shells, bombs and mines used on Vietnam by our country.

     In Quang Ngai alone there are about 26,000 disabled in some way, which includes polio and leprosy victims.  At least 4,000 are in need of prosthetic or orthotic devices.

     Quang Ngai, one of the most devastated areas in Vietnam, populated by poor farmers and fishermen, desperately needs a good rehabilitation center, and I intend, with the help of God and others, to achieve that, and go on revisiting and teaching there as long as my health and strength will allow.

     The blessings of NEYM, Vassalboro Quarterly Meeting, and Orono (ME) Monthly Meeting will help the faith and resolve of all of us who want to accomplish this so the children of Quang Ngai, past and present, can look forward to a more hopeful future.  We can complete the circle.