Vietnam Bones > Comments > "Review of Vietnam Bones"
Piece Comment
Commenter Profile
- Dmae Lo Roberts
- Username: dmaeroberts
- Location: Portland, Oregon
- Joined PRX: Oct 02, 2003
Piece Information
- "Vietnam Bones"
- Summary: A man tries to repatriate the bones of a Viet Cong soldier that his father took from the jungle, 35 years earlier.
3 comments
5 star: |
|
(1) |
4 star: |
|
(2) |
3 star: |
|
(0) |
2 star: |
|
(0) |
1 star: |
|
(0) |
Review of Vietnam Bones
Dmae Lo Roberts
Posted on October 05, 2004 at 11:45 AM
This is an intriguing and somewhat gruesome tale that reverberates now amid the ravages of war now. The practice of taking the bones of war enemies goes back to theft of Native American dead residing in modern day museums. But Deryk Patterson attempts to right the wrong of his father who stole the bones of a Viet Cong soldier. His effort leads him to question and makes some sort of sense about the reasons behind his father's actions. Can we ever understand the actions of a soldier in a war and the most horrific of violence? Was his father a hero? If so how could he take the remains of a human being as a souvenir of war? Producer Karen Brown does solid work here raising questions and offers several perspectives. A timely piece with the election and the discussion of "war heros" and current war we're in right now. I wonder how many "enemy" bones are out there sitting in American homes from wars past. There is a host intro that would need to edited out but this piece would work well on local news magazines.