Not all senators had seen war firsthand, Dr. Allen Hassan observed, and the experience of war was extremely sobering.

Failure to Atone: The True Story of a Jungle Surgeon in Vietnam is a powerful testament to the misery, death, and suffering of civilian populations caught in an aggressive war.

A former US Marine Corps Sergeant, Hassan's experiences as a doctor in Vietnam during the height of the Vietnam War turned him into a pacifist.

Failure to Atone describes the atrocities, horrors and intimidation he witnessed in Vietnam.

Failure to Atone notes that most casualties of modern war are not soldiers, but rather civilians. The majority of the dead and wounded in modern wars – up to 90 percent – are children.

While approximately 4,000 American soldiers have died in Iraq, prestigious medical journals such as The Lancet have estimated there are more than half a million civilian dead.

Hassan noted that the Iraq War was similar to Vietnam in that it was an aggressive war, begun on false pretenses, and waged by a modern military force against a ragtag guerilla enemy.

The Iraq War was also increasingly unpopular with the general public, and he hoped that by sending his book to senators, some would come to realize the true human cost of aggressive wars.

Failure to Atone was published this year in Vietnamese by First News-Tri Viet Publishing Company as Khong The Chuoc Loi.

A fund of the same name was founded in Ho Chi Minh City on April 30, Vietnam’s Reunification Day, by Hassan and First News-Tri Viet to aid Vietnamese victims of the war.

Recently First News-Tri Viet has donated 2,000 copies of “Khong The Chuoc Loi” to Vietnam’s President Nguyen Minh Triet, members of the National Assembly and other major government officials.

Source: PR