hello. we have now an interlude, an interlude that

will remind us of 50 years ago in a very different way, but i want to first make two informational points. one is, you see that poster that is over there? what that is is imagining the wall if it represented all of the vietnamese, lao, and cambodian that were killed. our numbers were the different than the ones we heard today, but in any case, the point is there, that recognition of all of the deaths is a far more massive issue. i would like to introduce mary poster, if she will stand up. you will hear her at the white house tonight. you heard her speak poignantly

about her husband's situation. mary is from ball state university, where they organized the only commemoration of the moratorium that we are aware of in the middle of october. that is all, like everything else is online, and you will get information about how to see it. so it is an honor to introduce peter. peter and i traveled together in vietnam three times, where he was doing public concerts to raise attention, international attention to the agent orange problem and landmines in uso. peter is unstoppable, and his ability to connect things together is unique. so we are going to ask peter to sing two

songs now. he will sing one song downstairs and at least one, maybe more, at the white house. we will just see how things go there. so, peter yarrow, i don't have to say much more than your name, but >> thank you. we are going to have a song now. when we finish the program, we are going downstairs. he will sing again. and when we get to the white house, that is when he is going to really sing. thank you, peter. (music) >> where have all the flowers

gone? long time passing. where have all the flowers gone? long time ago where have all the flowers gone? young girls have picked them every one when will they ever learn? when will they ever learn? where have all the young men gone? where have all the young men gone? longtime long time passing where have all the young men gone? long

time ago long where have all the young men gone? where have all the young men gone? gone for soldiers every one when will they ever learn? when will they ever learn? (music) (music) i was on reconciliation and development on three trips. i went back, because noah, paul, mary, travis and i spent close to a decade very deeply involved in the antiwar movement. in fact, there was a very important statement that was just made about how we're

going to let people know about what happened, so that it moves them? can you pull the door, please? i will do it. thank you. people may not move by statistics. i mean, they are informed by statistics, but let me tell you a quick story, and then i will go back to the songs. on my first trip to vietnam, the first day that we were out there, we went to friendship village, where it is judged that 50% of the children, at least, had the deformities as a legacy of agent orange.

and i sang for them. when you sing for these children, and you see what the deformities are, they are not unsimilar to floridamide, then you hold a child with deformities in your arms, and it is a child. they are not deformities, it is life and love. and it devastated me. friendship village was run by vietnamese and american g.i.'s. and the kids were ecstatic singing. for a few minutes, there was only just the joy of

singing together. we did not have to sing in vietnamese or in english. i came to that evening to the hanoi opera house, which is a two-thirds or three-quarter reproduction of the paris opera house. it was built during the occupation by the french. and i got up in front of the audience, and i came to a certain point when it was time for me to sing "blowing in the wind, " and i said to everybody, "i cannot sing this song. i cannot sing this song after what i experienced, until i tell you how i feel. i am not speaking for america. i am not speaking

for other people on this stage. i am speaking as a person who was at friendship village, " and i told them a bit about it. and i said, "from one american to all of you, i cannot tell you how horrified i am from just what i have experienced, to see what my country has done. i am horrified, beyond ashamed, i am" and then i sang. i said "ok, now i can do it, " and then i sang "blowing in the wind, " which i will do in a second, but all of southeast asia picked up on this story. it went crazy. why? because somebody was saying "the emperor has no clothes." and

that is why it frightens. and this is what i want to tell you, john, and you, susan. that i have an idea, for the next time we go to vietnam, learning from that and seeing it, do you know what, when it hit the ap, do you want to know some of the things that were said to me, about what i should do with my head when it was cut off? and that was before the era of facebook. it was extraordinary. what i did was i went back two more times and i made a film that was too grotesque to present to pbs. it was called "legacy of denial." that is

what we must alter if we are going to end this cycle. if we do not acknowledge the injury that we have done, and we do it in one specific way, it will break through. it was not just one way. there was plutonium or uranium tipped bullets in syria. we say we did this. guess what. forget about don't forget about it. acknowledge what it will do to people who are being acknowledged. what it will do for us is give us the chance to capture our humanity, how morality once more. if we don't do it we are condemned to continue this cycle. now we will sing "blowing in the

wind." and then i will tell you the idea. i want to show everybody he was going to join us on that trip. i want everybody to raise your hands. i will not sing "blowing in the wind" until you do. you are not raising your hand. you want to hear bob dylan. ok, here we go. (music) the house is filled with ex-pats. they knew peter, paul and mary's music filled with vietnamese. in the end the adults said and i know you know this, we don't need your apology, peter. just let us live our lives in peace. the young people said, thank you.

(music) (music) the answer, my friend is blowing in the wind the