Medicine Man-Healing Cambodia; 1995 U.S. Special Ops Medical Civic Action Project

Medicine Man, Shaman, Voodoo Healer
Spirit Talker, Shadow Stalker
Staff 'n' bones and ancient ways
Vision stones and psychic haze
Born and old, tooth and tail
Unknown path and broken trail
Warring village, death and disease
River water and bark of trees
Our Doc went in to treat the ill
His eyes grew wet and heart held still
People stoic, strengthened by time
Bitter yet soft like chicory brine
Followed a man wild and wise
Breathing laughter, tears in his eyes
No modern cure or aid bag trick
Would heal this village of what makes it sick
Social poverty, political strife
Decades of fighting, no chance at life
Famine and hardship they'd learned to cope
Child to elder starving for hope

Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea, Kampot Province, Cambodia; 1995 Medical Civil Action Project, U.S. Special Operations and Indigenous Royal Khmer Armed Forces.

I led the PSYOP element and had tea on a small porch with the home's resident, General Chhouk Rin, former Khmer Rouge commander, just one year after he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of three tourists, Australian David Wilson, 29, Briton Mark Slater, 28, and Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet, 27 at Phnom Voar in 1994. In 2005, he lost an appeal to overturn the ruling that sentenced him to life imprisonment. General Rin showed me the scar where a bullet had traversed the whole length of his leg. He told me through my interpretor that, "many times thay tried to get me and I am still alive this day."

Chhouk Rin's Khmer Rouge Regiment had defected and was settled in the re-integration village at Kampuchea, where I met with three men and a child, four generations allowed me to sit with them and hear their story. Each man wanted me to understand the reason they put down their rifles. The oldest said he wanted his family to continue. The Grandfather wanted his son to farm the land. The Father wanted his son to never learn the only thing he had ever known. The make shift medical clinic we opened for three weeks saw nearly ever member of this village. The local medicine man was the primary care provider for his people. Our medics administered vaccinations and treated a dizzying array of ailments. We all understood that our efforts were a mere band-aid on a wound that would take decades to heal. Special thanks should go to every civilian agency in that region that tirelessly works to give hope where hope is in such short supply.

Reference: Taipei Times 10/27/2005 "Ex-guerrilla commander heads for jail"