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214 Our life’s journey never ends. It is like a rushing stream fed by the annual monsoon water or the melting water from the great glaciers. Even during the driest of seasons, the stream continues to run. Only when we die does our life’s journey come to an end. We can choose to enjoy the journey by overcoming all obstacles, adversities , challenges, and tragedies in our own way, or we can fall flat on our faces. For it is not how hard we fell but rather how well we got up that counts the most. If you are still breathing, then it is crystal clear that you have a choice. Hopefully, you’ll make the right one and move on with your life, regardless of life’s circumstances. My own guiding light took me back to Cambodia, home to memories I had actively and foolishly evaded for years. It was 1992. A U.N.-sponsored democratic election was scheduled for the following year, and I signed up with a USAIDfunded nongovernmental organization (NGO), which was working to ensure a free and fair election process. The trip would be the first of many regular voyages to do volunteer work, to heal, and also to reconcile with my past. During my year-long stay in 1993–94, while I did my part to help rebuild Cambodia to its best potential, I witnessed history unfold before my eyes. I once again became a part of Cambodia, just as Cambodia has always been a part of me. But Cambodia today is not the place I knew as a child, no matter how hard I look. As I said when I first stepped out of Pochentong International Airport in 1992, “It is a very sad world out here!” Even National Highway 6, the familiar road by my hometown, reflected the country’s instability through its new ruts, and depressions, and monstrous potholes. My old Cambodia, like my family, has long been dead. Gone! A new one has risen in its place, this much I realize. I can no longer afford to live in the past, but I can well dream about it, gain strength by it, and look to build a better future. I can make a difference in Epilogue EPILOGUE 215 Cambodia, and in this world, no matter how tiny. For a “good person” always looks to draw a “small circle” around him and his family. A “better person” always looks to draw a “larger circle” around him that includes his family, his friends, and his community. A “great person,” however, always looks to draw a “great big circle” around him that includes his family, his friends, his community , his nation, and his world. I intend to do my very best and I have made an honest effort. I will always consider the past, the present, and the future in everything I do. Pol Pot, the head of Angkar (the organization also known as the Khmer Rouge), died in April 1998. “My conscience is clear,” Pol Pot said in an interview before his death. Like many other senior Khmer Rouge leaders, Pol Pot, also known as Saloth Sar, refused to take blame for his evil work. He and many other Khmer Rouge leaders like him blamed the death of millions, including this survivor’s family, on others—namely “Vietnamese, KGB, and CIA agents.” He honestly believed what he did was for the good of Cambodia! Sadly, they are not alone in this “blaming game.” Many others refuse to take responsibility for what happened in Cambodia. Worse yet, some do not believe that this genocide, one of the worst in modern time, ever happened in the first place. “It’s propaganda,” these individuals say. People are easily blinded by ignorance. More reason for mass education by those who managed to survive genocide. There was not a scintilla of remorse by the mass murderers of millions. Many of Pol Pot’s top henchmen and women, his top lieutenants, are now dead. The few who are still alive are sick, aging, or infirm. Yet they are still very much defiant. They still blame others for the blood, including the blood of my loved ones that stained their evil hands. They take no responsibility for their atrocities and crimes against the Khmer people (their own people) and against humanity. These people have no morality or conscience, absolutely nothing. They feel no remorse and feel no shame for what they have done, individually or collectively. They have...

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