Chuck Searcy A Presentation & Conversation
Thursday, September 4
6pm Registration
6:30 pm Program/Wine Reception
Marines Memorial Club, 609 Sutter Street, San Francisco
Free Event: Must pre-register
Vietnam War veteran Chuck Searcy has lived in Vietnam for the last nearly 20 years. He started and works with Project Renew, a de-mining operation in Quang Tri Province (the northern-most province of what was South Vietnam, and perhaps the most heavily bombed chunk of land in history. Tens of thousands of tons of unexploded ordnance (UXOs) still lie in the land of Vietnam, and approximately 100,000 people have been killed or maimed by exploding leftovers since the end of the war.
Project Renew has made a massive change in that horrible statistic within one province of Vietnam, reducing the death rate to near zero.
Mike Cerre, former ABC News Correspondent and Vietnam Veteran, will interview Chuck Searcy, former Army Intelligence analyst during the war, who now works with Veterans for Peace Chapter 160 and an International Advisor for Project Renew, working with Vietnamese teams to clean up the dangerous UXO and Agent Orange legacies left from the war.
LAUNCH OF “OPERATION LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL”
Chuck Searcy, a former Army Intelligence analyst who served in Viet Nam 1967-68, has spent nearly twenty years living in Vietnam and working with Vietnamese teams to clean up the dangerous UXO and Agent Orange legacies we left behind.
“This is not about blame or guilt,” Chuck says, “it’s about responsibility. It’s about stepping up to do the right thing, to finally bring an end to the war for the Vietnamese – who are still being killed and injured by bombs and mines and struggling every day with the consequences of Agent Orange.
A former newspaper publisher from Athens, GA and assistant administrator for the Small Business Administration in Washington, Searcy now works out of Hanoi and Dong Ha, Quang Tri Province with Project RENEW, one of the largest UXO removal operations in Vietnam. It’s funded by veterans and other private donors and with government grants from five countries, including the U.S. through the State Department. Just this past year, RENEW teams safely recovered and disposed of more than 4800 UXO left over from the war. Read more…
2014 0804 UXO Cam Tuyen
An unexploded 500-pound U.S. bomb was safely destroyed today by Project RENEW’s teams in Trieu Phong District. Following the request for assistance from the provincial military, Project RENEW sent its Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Quick Response team to Cam Tuyen Commune where the big bomb was discovered. The team identified the device a US MK82 aircraft bomb and safely removed it to the Central Demolition Site where it was later disposed of. Earlier in August 2012, RENEW’s EOD team had safely destroyed an MK82 bomb which was found by local scrap collectors in Lang Vei.
Veterans Speakers Alliance: Veterans For Peace 