In January I wrote that 2012 would be a year of more listening for me. Currently I am on a listening pilgrimage of sorts: I am writing this from Vietnam, where I am traveling with a small group of Vietnam War veterans. We are traveling from the Mekong Delta to Hanoi visiting old battle sites, meeting with former enemies and allies, and performing community service and restitution along the way.
My role, as a non-veteran on this journey, is one of support and listening. So far it has been an amazing and stretching experience. Today we are in Hue, a place of intense fighting and destruction during the 1968 Tet Offensive.
The role of listening is humbling, time-consuming and demanding of more than ears. It is also transforming what I thought I knew. Below are a few notes.
Hanging out with combat vets is a potent setting in which to practice listening, but it can be tough on the ego. Veterans share an experience I will never have. What do I know about military life and war? Early in the trip, during an exotic home-stay at an island village in the Mekong Delta, a group of VietCong and South Vietnamese Army veterans came together with our veterans for a long evening of food, conversation and storytelling. As veterans told impassioned stories of battles, of trying to outfox each other and of the aftermath of war, I could only sit and listen. I had nothing to contribute but my ears. It was humbling and made me painfully aware of how my listening has always been augmented by a need to speak. My ego doesn’t like being an audience.
People need listeners they can trust.
Just as employees often guard what they say around managers, veterans are wary of talking around civilians. But the more I keep my mouth shut and demonstrate a willingness to listen by being present, showing interest and letting others lead the conversation, the more the veterans talk. A grandmother and former VietCong soldier traveled quietly with us for several days before she finally told the story of being captured by Americans in 1969 and what happened during her three-year imprisonment by the South Vietnamese Army. It was a story I will never forget, but it came only after she felt safe enough to speak.
Yesterday, as a veteran and I talked about urban warfare, he suddenly said, “Hey, man, I’m really glad you’re here. We’re all caught up in our own memories of Vietnam, but it’s great to have someone along who hasn’t been soiled by war.” It was a powerful observation. People value listeners who honor their unique story. But as listeners, we often want to find points of identification (“I know how you feel”). Perhaps there is greater value in simply allowing someone to have a completely unique experience. Maybe we should be thinking or saying, “I do not know how you feel and I honor your unique experience as something I can learn about from you.”
Deep listening breaks down the walls between us.
An old proverb says, “An enemy is someone whose story I have not heard.” Two days ago, in the rural village of Tam Thai, we were invited to lunch by an aging rice farmer. As we walked up a narrow path to the farmer’s home, an American veteran who had served in the area shuddered and said, “Forty years ago I would have been shot here.” He was right. As we gathered around a simple meal of rice and fish, the farmer explained that he had been a secret communist fighter during the war, looking for ways to attack the Americans. But as he told his story and each veteran told theirs, there were no enemies in the room.
To read more about John’s travels, visit listeningtowar.blogspot.com.
