The American war in Vietnam has left many long-lasting scars, the worst of them inflicted in a tiny area bounded by the demilitarized zone between North and South and the Ho Chi Minh Trail in neighboring Laos. That small region saw the most intense aerial bombing campaign in history, the massive use of toxic chemicals, and the heaviest casualties on both sides.
The Long Reckoning is the inspirational story of the small cast of characters—veterans, scientists, and Quaker-inspired pacifists, and their Vietnamese partners— who used their moral authority, political ingenuity, and sheer persistence to heal the horrors that were left in the wake of the military engagement in Southeast Asia. Their intersecting stories of reconciliation and personal redemption are embedded in a vivid portrait of Vietnam today, from the magical bustle of Hanoi to the remotest reaches of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, in which mortal enemies, in the endless shape-shifting of geopolitics, have been transformed into strategic military allies.