War & Peace (& everything in between)

I would like to believe that no one is actually FOR this war or any war for that matter, but I am most certainly FOR my fellow Americans fighting in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am incredibly proud to be an American and all of the rights and privileges that entails. I am also incredibly proud of the men and women who have fought all these many years throughout every war to give me the freedoms I enjoy - and generally take for granted.

Whether you are opposed to this war or not isn't really the issue. The issue is whether or not you support our brothers and sisters who are fighting. Our family supports them and prays for them daily. I had a really interesting thing happen to me while we were in VIETNAM. On one of our last days in Saigon, Mike, Olivia and I went to the War Remnants Museum. I should mention that it used to be named the American War Crimes Museum. I have obviously seen pictures and footage of the Vietnam war, but to be in that country and feel so much love and respect for it's people and THEN see the pictures and actual guns and clothes of the soldiers and the remains of the innocents caught in the middle of it, is a very different - and sobering - thing. There were actually two babies in large jars that had been born and consequently died (or were born dead) due to the affects of Agent Orange. I'm not going to pretend to understand anything about Agent Orange and or how it was truly used, but I can't ignore having seen those two little babies forever frozen in time - one with two heads and another so grossly disfigured that it was hard to distinguish it's parts. I'm also not going to pretend to understand anything about the Vietnam war in general. I was born in 1975 when the war was ending. No one in my close family was in the war, so I don't even know any war stories. I know that the US made mistakes, but they also did a great service there and we never felt anything but love and respect from the Vietnamese people while we were there adopting Olivia.

One of the things at that museum that struck me the most was the award winning picture of the little girl running naked down the middle of the street because her clothes had literally been burned off of her. To me that little girl was Olivia. All of those children are Olivia. They were all innocents trapped in a country at war. I can't help but think of all the little children in Iraq that have lost their lives. There are thousands of children who live in fear of death every single day while my children run and play with their endless supply of toys believing that everything in the world is good.

My life changed when we visited the Navy museum in Pensacola last September. There was a room set up to look like the cells where our troops were held at the "Hanoi Hilton" prison during the war. We visited the real Hanoi Hilton while we were in Vietnam. John McCain is the most well know soldier who was held there. It was in that moment last September, when I was first surrounded by these images from my daughter's birth country, that I realized that without the sacrifices of those thousands and thousands and thousands of soldiers who lost their lives fighting in Vietnam, I may not have been allowed to adopt from there. Because of the course history took there many years ago, doors were opened that allowed me to bring my beautiful daughter home in 2006. I am not usually a publicly emotional person, but I openly cried that day in Pensacola with strangers all around me as I thought about the men and women who died to make it possible for me to have a daughter from Vietnam. I have been to the Vietnam memorial in D.C. and I know how far the names stretch. I had no idea when I was there at 17 years of age that one day those names would mean so very much to me. They are to be partially credited for helping us bring our precious Olivia home. I thank the soldiers who fought in my daughter's country and their families. I thank my government for standing up for what is right. I thank GOD most of all for peace in a place that many thought would never be peaceful. I love VIETNAM and I love AMERICA and I'm so grateful that Olivia gets to be Vietnamese American. Just for the record, we now consider ourselves to be Vietnamese Americans as well. Her flesh may not be my flesh nor her blood my blood, but she is in my heart and she courses through my veins.

I believe that peace can be found in Iraq as well. I have faith in my GOD to heal that country. Pray with me and support our troops. Who knows. One day you might have a child or grandchild adopted from Iraq. If you are in the military - there isn't a big enough font for the THANK YOU that you deserve.