the unknown patriots

If your soul is free, you can stand against slavery and evil at any time.

The year was 1919. Germans had fallen short.

At a place named Versailles in Paris, peace treaties were being signed.

A man was present.

a young East Asian waiter who delivered a letter to US President Woodrow Wilson to the treaty offices.

He urged that his country be granted independence and be freed from French domination.

A request that, given the way land was being divided up and allocated at the time, ought to have been taken into consideration.

Of course, he was unable to meet the President. His secretaries assured the young man that the President would see the letter.

This never took place.

After failing to convince the irate young man, he chose to fight. He struggled for 50 years after that.

He battled the French. He struggled with the Japanese. He also engaged in battle with the country he had formerly admired: the United States.

He got his way. However, he passed just four years after driving out all invaders from his country. He never got to witness his country advance.

What saddens me is this. Ho Chi Minh was never able to witness Vietnam as it is today, in contrast to Singapore's Lee Kwan Yu and other anti-colonialists who lived.