For the past year or so, Winds of Peace has been anxiously awaiting the completion of the photojournalism project by Paul Dix and Pam Fitzpatrick entitled, “Nicaragua:Surviving the Legacy of U.S. Policy.”  It’s a remarkable effort wherein the authors revisited war victims some twenty years after their first interviews at the time of the U.S.-backed Contra initiative which so ravaged the country, both physically and emotionally.  Dix and Fitzpatrick had the monumental task of first locating some of the victims and then chronicling their lives during the intervening years.  It’s an insightful journey into the psyche of the subjects as well as a telling post-mortem of a U.S. policy of war and its aftermath.  It’s particularly timely given the makeup of U.S. foreign policy strategies today.

This book will impact readers on multiple fronts: it’s a beautiful yet heart-rending pictorial, featuring both the physical torment of the victims, but also the soaring spirits of innocents who have managed to survive, reconcile and forgive.  It’s an historical account of an undeclared war of our time, one about which many U.S. citizens know little.  It’s a compendium of beautifully-written stories of everyday people confronting the uninvited horrors of war.  And it’s an invitation for us to leave the comforts of our easy lives just long enough to meet some amazing neighbors to the south and know a bit of their lives.  There aren’t many books that can lay claim to so many gifts!

I am not prone to telling people how to think or what to do; life decisions are our own and that’s what we know as freedom.   But in this case, I enthusiastically encourage anyone reading this entry to access this book and come to know it.  You can find ordering information at www.NicaraguaPhotoTestimony.org.  It will touch your heart and mind and cause you to wonder and ask.  It’s what being a U.S. citizen, and a human being, is all about….