Posted on 04/23/2012 9:36:50 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The face of Sath Om reveals even more than her chilling words. The pain seems so immediate and real, it is as if time has stopped.
"It's still real," the 92-year-old survivor of the Cambodian genocide says through translation as the tears flow. "It's like a stick in your eyes when it's remembered."
Om has harrowing stories of life during the brutal reign of the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979 when upward of 2 million Cambodians died from malnutrition, disease and murder in the country's notorious Killing Fields. Om was burned out of her house and had to run for her life.
She was imprisoned for a time.
She was clubbed on the head, stripped and left for dead in one of the many killing fields strewn across the Cambodian countryside.
Her four children were taken from her and she never saw them again.
Her husband was led away. Although she was told they would be reunited, it never happened.
"I had no hope," she says.
She is the lone survivor. But each night she says they come to her: the spirits of her family asking for her help asking for justice.
As Om tells her story, she covers her eyes and ears, describing the visions and sounds of the souls of her husband, children, parents and siblings.
At other times, Om dreams she is again being taken away to be killed.
In those times of cold dreads, she's not even sure where the dreams and sleep end and the waking memories begin.
These days, Om tries to fill her days with activities and companionship to ward off the ghosts and keep her mind occupied.
(Excerpt) Read more at contracostatimes.com ...
That reminds me, my next eleventy billion dollar money making scheme, sell tee-shirts of Pol Pot to Democrat college students.
Poor lady.
All you Vietnam war protesters and activists, the blood of these people are on your hands....sleep well.
That was an ugly mess and Pol Pot was pure evil
/johnny
The stories she told ripped out my heart.
/johnny
This is where the ideology of obama and the left leads. Anyone who thinks I’m being hyperbolic hasn’t studied history. That’s why I MAY vote for Romney. But to be blunt, I see him taking us down the same road, just a tiny bit slower...
They do sleep well. They have no clue what they wrought. That, or they’re souless...
As a member of a family (the European side), that was wiped out during the Holocaust, I understand the pain of Om.
Some of us tried to tell the world what the Communists (VC, No. Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge) were doing to that country since at least 1967, but nobody wanted to listen.
Don Kirk did some of the earliest writing about Cambodia and Khmer Rouge atrocities (Chicago Tribune, 1967-68 etc), and I contributed my major piece in Human Events, Dec. 1970 after returning from a trip there and to SVN).
I have the unfortunate distinction of being the only journalist to testify before Congress (twice, July 1974 and April 1975) about the ongoing KR atrocities and the upcoming genocide.
America, esp. the Democrats, abandoned Cambodia and its people to a genocide a half-step below the Holocaust, and I knew people who were slaughtered in the streets of Phnom Penh and in the jungles.
Some of us tried, but the Hanoi Lobby and the Quisling Democats won, and millions died. Never forget that.
A lot of people died to teach us that fact, and we owe it to them to keep warning the world about the next “Khmer Rouge”, be it Achmedgenocide in Iran, Nasrullah of Hamas, Hezbollah, the mass murderers of No. Korea, the slaverers and slaughterers from the Sudan, or whatever evil forces that are arising in Egypt against the Christian Copts, or the Muslim fanatics of Boko Harem against millions of Christians in Nigeria.
Maybe someone will listen this time.
America lost her soul when we sold out our friends, how could anyone ever trust us again?
They won’t.
They are souless, heartless, amoral, self-absorbed, arrogant, elitist, overeducated and under-ethical bastards and traitors.
Hope this answers your question.
I knew many of the leaders of the Hanoi Lobby and some were downright psychopathes, inveterate liars, academic frauds, and Stalin wannabes. And the media bought their lies and pro-Communist operations almost without question, and made the supporters of freedom in Indochina into right-wing extremists.
The best and brightest Americans fought and often died in S. Vietnam, while the cowards and traitors stayed home and got media coverage. Now you know why I, a former card-carrying member of the media (a pro-American newspaper), hate these pieces of shit, esp. those from CBS (Communist Broadcasting System).
The liberals of today are the socialists of tomorrow and don’t you forget it, and they hate you.
/johnny
#11. Thanks to Al Gore’s fabulous internet, we can reach more sane people with the truth than ever before. That is why I post a lot a night when I have some free time.
We can use the internet, email chains, contacting talk radio shows, email comments to both regular and online newspapers, website and blogsites, write to alumni magazines if the topic is Vietnam/Cambodia (a very effective tactic we have used all over the country), etc.
Never give in, never give up!
And the UN stood by and let it happen again in Rwanda. And let’s not forget that the head of the UN in the late 70s was a friction’ Nazi, who was complicit in the atrocities of the Ustashe in Croatia.
I simply cannot comprehend that level inhumanity, except that those of that mind set are purely sociopathic.
Vang Pao’s Hmong too.
Good allies, Some few made it to US.
—
Vang Pao Gets Arlington Ceremony After Burial Snub
http://www.military.com/news/article/vang-pao-gets-arlington-ceremony-after-burial-snub.html
He gave the Pathet Lao a beating on the Plain of Jars in Laos.
Pop Buell, Bill Lair, Tony Poe and other spooks helped him.
And now stupid ass Secretary of State and Former First Enabler Hillary Clinton says last week that since new leader KIM JONG UN of North Korea had "spent a good amount of time abroad" that perhaps he would be more reasonable and acceed to the world's wishes to stop missile launches, nuke tests and open the country up.
How NAIVE. You cannot make this up. Truly liberalism is a mental disorder, it makes people dilusional in their utopian fuzzy mind funk. These people actually run our foreign policy??!!!
Hello, John Kerry?
This is what you fought so hard for, in the killing fields of Paris, negotiating with the enemy
This is one of the dominos you said would never fall
two million souls....waiting to greet you some day
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