“THE POWER OF THE PRESS BELONGS TO THOSE WHO OWN ONE.

AnimalsVOICE
THE

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010 MAGAZINE

MAN’S
BEST
FRIEND
needs all
the friends
he can get

THE ANIMALS VOICE MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED INDEPENDENTLY OF ANY ORGANIZATION.

It’s a dog’s legacy
A Man on a Mission
I
I am a man on a mission, and I can pinpoint the exact
moment when it all began.
On a summer day four years ago, I was a Marine Major
who had volunteered for duty as the Naval Attaché in one
of the world’s poorest nations: Vietnam. I had already spent
18 years in a Marine Corps uniform largely because I had
come to believe very early in my life—in my early teens,
in fact—that a life not lived in service to something bigger
than self is a life wasted.
Yet, despite having spent a good part of my career build-
ing bridges—literally as well as metaphorically—in hopes
of preventing war and improving the lives of people all over
the world, a piece of the puzzle always seemed to be miss-
ing for me, preventing me from ever really enjoying the
peace that comes from knowing that I was doing what I was
made to do, what I had been born to do.
My life changed forever on June 7, 2006, around 9:30 in
the morning while I was on my way to deliver donated U.S.
Defense Department medical equipment to a rural medical
clinic far up in the northwestern corner of Vietnam, not far
from the Lao and Chinese borders. Near the end of a ten-
hour drive to a small township named Lai Chau, a lone
motorbike heading in the same direction passed my vehicle
on the right hand side. Instinctively, I turned from my con-
versation with the driver and glanced out the window; from
where I sat in the front passenger seat, I could very clearly
see a wicker basket strapped to the back of the motorbike
and within it a number of dogs, perhaps as many as four or
five in a space that might comfortably contain but one. I
recall even today—at this very moment—the look of dread
and fear in the eyes of one of these dogs as our gaze met
ever so briefly.
I had lived in Vietnam long enough at this point to know
immediately that these dogs were not bound for a pet store
or on their way to the veterinarian. They were not some
family’s beloved companions. No, I knew they were headed
for the dinner table and perhaps among the car’s three pas-
sengers, two of whom were local Vietnamese staff, I was
20 THE ANIMALS VOICE MAGAZINE
by Bob Lucius
the only one who saw them—really saw them—and felt
moved by their plight. I knew these dogs would be dragged
from their cages, poked, prodded, beaten, and intentionally
tormented and terrified in order to elevate the adrenalin
levels in their blood which, as Vietnamese culture informs
us, allegedly imparts medicinal libido-enhancing qualities
to their flesh.
My mind raced. A handful of scenarios passed through
my head, most of them rationalizations to spare me the
uncomfortable realization that these dogs were going to be
murdered for “Thit Cho”—dog meat.
Vietnam has historically not been an animal friendly
country, nor have the Vietnamese as a people been known
for their kindness to animals. As a Confucian society, the
notion of kindness to strangers, much less to animals, would
be atypical. Caring about the welfare of animals, other than
in their capacity as implements of labor, means of trans-
portation or as sources of sustenance, is simply not part of
the traditional Vietnamese experience or worldview.
Most animals in Vietnam are invisible—yet those are the
lucky ones. Anything that moves is likely to be eaten—dog
is a well-known delicacy, preferably beaten and tortured
up to the moment of death in some horrifically misguided
belief that the flesh will be infused with adrenalin, allegedly
making the flesh not just more succulent but also more
effective as an enhancer of male libido. Dogs, however, are
not the only animals on the menu in Vietnamese restaurants.
If it crawls, creeps, walks, slithers, swims or flies, it is apt
to be found on a plate or in a soup bowl, including pan-
golin, monkeys, civets, endangered turtles and, yes, even
“baby tiger” (domestic cats). The few real tigers left remain-
ing are on the brink of extinction because of the demand for
traditional medicines and bear bile extraction is still widely
practiced at farms throughout the country despite having
been made illegal in 2005.
Domesticated “companion” animals, such as dogs and
cats, have never faired particularly well in Vietnam. The
typical lifespan for these species is only a few years, a sad
fact that is frequently exacerbated by poor nutrition, a lack
of veterinary care, and a surfeit of abuse and neglect. It is
still not uncommon for a family to keep a dog and feed it
table scraps until its usefulness as a home sentry has
reached its end—and then slaughter for a quick, cheap meal.
Most cat and dogs in Vietnam are never even afforded the
dignity of a name and thus live their tenuous existence
anonymous and invisible to the vast majority of Vietnamese.
But back to the dogs. The course of action I eventually
settled upon was to order my driver to overtake the motor-
cycle and beckon for the driver to pull to the side of the
road, where I would then magnanimously offer to buy the
dogs’ freedom—at whatever the cost. I would then set the
dogs free in the countryside where they could fend for
themselves and I would spend the last few hours of my
drive to Lai Chau basking in the warm afterglow of self-
satisfaction—and then go back to my life pretty much as
it had been before.
Above: A similar image to the one Bob Lucius saw that fateful day.
 But then I hesitated: As an educated and experienced
specialist in the area of foreign cultures and languages, serv-
ing as a military diplomat in Vietnam and Indonesia, I had
come to appreciate through trial and effort the notion of cul-
tural relativity and I did not want to come across as a cultur-
al imperialist—the Ugly American. You may recall that the
American military had decades before developed quite a
reputation for not being
sensitive to the cultural
realities of Vietnam—a
weakness that hampered
our ability to “win hearts
and minds” among the
Vietnamese. I wondered,
“Would my staff think me
foolish?” “Would they
perceive my actions as
culturally offensive?”
“Would such behavior
degrade my influence
with them or eventually
undercut my ability to
accomplish my assigned
duties, especially if they
came to believe that I did
not respect their cultural
traditions?”
I turned these thoughts over and over in my head—and
when I finished my mental gymnastics and looked up again
the motorcycle was long gone—and so was the last chance
for those dogs. My heart was sick and I felt nothing but
shame. Shame because I had always prided myself for being
an agile and courageous decision-maker, not afraid to make
the difficult choices come what may—whatever the cost.
My career had been built on that reputation, yet at the very
moment when this clear moral question was before me, I
failed the test. I had never felt more ashamed or cowardly
in my life.
My staff and I afterwards continued on to Lai Chau
township, where later that morning we successfully deliv-
ered nearly $1 million dollars worth of medical equipment
to the district clinic. We took group pictures, shook hands
and following the formalities the local officials took me to
lunch to express their gratitude to me for making the trip.
No, we didn’t eat dog—but the menu was nevertheless a
sumptuous spread for such a poor community: beef, chick-
en, fish, shrimp, and pork—all washed down with lots of
beer and generous portions of the local traditional moon-
shine. They bought me lunch and I handed out U.S. Em-
bassy baseball caps to my hosts.
When the lunch was over we shook hands, resolved to
meet again, and then my secretary and I proceeded to walk
to our car to begin the long two-day journey back to Hanoi
—and that’s when my world changed forever. As we walked
towards the exit, I glanced to my right—towards the kitchen
—where the cooks were cleaning up and preparing for the
evening crowd—and through the doorway I saw a dead dog,
skinned and splayed out on the concrete kitchen floor just
seconds away from being butchered to be added to all man-
ner of soups, stews, and stir-fries for the next round of cus-
Above: A dog peers from a cage in a live animal market; later butchered and sold for meat.
tomers. And like a light switch, my life flipped from dark-
ness to light.
I’ll never know if the dog I saw dead on the floor in that
ramshackle restaurant was the same dog whose eyes met
mine on that lonely road in the middle of nowhere, but it
doesn’t really matter. Those eyes were every animal’s eyes,
that dog was every animal who had ever been beaten,
abused, exploited, injured
or killed, every creature
who had paid the price for
my appetites, my sense of
fashion, my selfishness
over the previous 36 years
of my life. My choice—
and make no mistake—
my hesitation to act was
in effect a choice to simply
do nothing cost those dogs
their lives. My cowardice
had led those dogs to that
kitchen floor and to their
deaths. Man’s best friend
betrayed for a bowl of
soup.
Despite the fact that
I still find the memory of
that experience exception-
ally painful and shameful, I view it in every sense of the
word as a “gift”—a blessing. It was a moment of awakening
of the kind that eludes most people throughout their entire
lives. The haunting memory of that event, painfully seared
into my very consciousness, has become a source of power,
inspiration and motivation for me: Had it not happened,
I am quite sure that I would not be writing this today.
It is a matter of faith to me that I believe that animals
have souls and that the resurrection at the end of time will
also include them. I believe also that I will see those dogs
again someday—and when I do I will ask their forgiveness.
And, as anyone who has ever known a dog knows very
well, they will undoubtedly give it freely and without hesi-
tation. Until that day comes, however, I will continue to
seek my redemption. I can no longer save those dogs, but
there are billions of other dogs, cats, pigs, cows, horses,
sheep and other non-human animals waiting for relief, for
rescue, for salvation: More than enough for a lifetime’s
work.
I spent the last two years of my assignment in Vietnam
trying to make a difference. I helped the U.S. Department
of Defense build health clinics and schools in poor commu-
nities; I worked diligently to make Vietnam’s equivalent of
the Coast Guard become more effective at saving lives on
the high seas and responding to natural disasters; I managed
U.S. State Department programs to help the Vietnamese
clean up unexploded ordinance (UXO) left over from the
Vietnam War; I coordinated some of the largest sea-based
humanitarian medical assistance missions to visit Vietnam
since the end of the war in 1975; and in my free time I ran
an outreach program to improve the quality of life for elder-
ly leprosy patients living in remote areas.
I became a vegetarian and yet something was still miss-
THE ANIMALS VOICE MAGAZINE 21
ing. I had not truly begun to make amends for my cow-
ardice on the road to Lai Chau.
In August 2008, my wife and I returned to the Monterey
Peninsula, where we had first met and fallen in love as stu-
dents at the Naval Postgraduate School. She became a pro-
fessor at the Naval War College branch at NPS and I began
an assignment as the Assistant Provost for Continuing
Education at DLI. We bought a house in Pacific Grove, I
went vegan, adopted a second cat, had our first child, and
made the decision that I would end my Marine Corps career
here on the Peninsula. It was also a time when I began to
lay the groundwork for my return to Vietnam in an effort
to right a wrong that I had been part of.
Last year we established the Kairos Coalition, a tax-
exempt, non-profit charity based in Pacific Grove with the
mission of employing innovative and culturally-normative
approaches to deliver Humane Education in developing
countries. We strive to use traditional creative arts to pro-
mote reverence for all life and respect for the dignity of
each person, while also fostering an deeper understanding
of the power of empathy and mercy in the compassionate
exercise of personal responsibility for achieving a cruelty-
free and sustainable world.
Humane Edutainment
The Kairos Coalition’s approach to humane edu-
cation is called “Humane Edutainment,” a pedagogy
that draws primarily from “Forum Theatre,” a type
of participatory theater rooted in Augusto Boal’s
“Theatre of the Oppressed.” Forum Theater perform-
ances are comprised of a number of short dramatic
vignettes that portray ethical dilemmas in which a
protagonist is put into a position of being oppressed
or of being an accessory of oppression. Thorough
interactions within the context of ethical vignettes,
members of the audience are forced to free them-
selves from the limitations of merely being specta-
tors of an unfolding drama; instead, they are forced
to confront these dilemmas by joining in the action
in order to satisfactorily resolve the crises them-
selves. The Humane Edutainment approach facili-
tates the experiential learning process and creates
cognitive conflict, an important vehicle for stimulat-
ing behavioral modification.
“Humane Edutainment” also employs an
approach distilled from centuries of Vietnamese cul-
tural tradition. Traditional art forms, such as water
puppetry, dance, poetry, painting and improvisational
theatre, are called upon to convey important Humane
Education messages. This “culturally-normed” approach
has historically been very effective in reaching audiences
of broad composition, ranging from those with little formal
education to those who are very highly educated. The tradi-
tion of roaming teams of performers and minstrels such as
these dates back centuries in Vietnam and China. For exam-
ple, during the 1940s and 1950s, the Vietnam Communist
Party led by Ho Chi Minh relied extensively on traveling
“Culture and Drama Teams” to propagandize Marxist-
Leninist ideology throughout rural communities.
We are currently working in collaboration with diverse
22 THE ANIMALS VOICE MAGAZINE Photos next page: Bob Lucius at work in Vietnam then and now—for the dogs.
array of domestic and international public, private, and non-
profit stakeholders to coordinate the development and deliv-
ery of a Humane Education curriculum in Vietnam using the
“Humane Edutainment” methodology. During a nine-month
proof-of-concept pilot (December 2010-August 2011), a
mobile training team (MTT) comprised of entirely of youth
volunteers will be trained, equipped, and sponsored to con-
duct between Humane Edutainment performances at various
secondary schools and universities in the Hanoi Municipal
Region, an area of approximately 1,300 square miles. The
Hanoi Municipal Region is comprised of ten urban districts,
eighteen rural districts and one township with a total popu-
lation of just over six million, including more than three
million school-age children.
An initial cadre of “performers,” comprised entirely
of volunteers, will participate in a Humane Edutainment
Practitioner Workshop from November 6-12, 2010, that I
will lead with two other volunteers from the United States.
During this workshop participants will gain a more nuanced
awareness of issues related to animal welfare and environ-
mental ethics in Vietnam through presentations and discus-
sions with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) form various
NGOs working in this field in Vietnam and throughout the
Asia Pacific region. They will also learn and practice the
fundamental skills of Forum Theater that form the core of
the Humane Edutainment approach. Finally, participants and
facilitators will together explore the use of other traditional
creative and dramatic arts as potential delivery vehicles for
Humane Education.
From December 2010 through August 2011 the MTT
will conduct Humane Edutainment performances at local
schools and universities located throughout the Hanoi
Municipal Region. Youth participants attending these per-
formance events will receive take-away literature, includ-
ing fact sheets and a four-page newspaper that addresses
Humane Education themes and outlines steps that individ-
 One man’s journey...
uals can take in their communities to advance Humane Edu-
cation objectives at the grassroots level. Five times through-
out the pilot, youth participants under the stewardship of
volunteer and organizational mentors will be given the
opportunity to undertake small-scale community projects
with a Humane Education theme.
Throughout this pilot, youth will be invited, encouraged
and empowered to become more personally involved in fur-
thering the Humane agenda by becoming volunteer partici-
pants in the Humane Edutainment troupe and/or becoming
active members of community-based youth clubs established
to carry-out local community projects.

Time Travel
Someone asked me recently to describe in a single sen-
tence the vision of the Kairos Coalition. I answered that I
could do better than that. I could do it in two words: “time
travel.”
That response got a pretty funny look, but if you think
about it what we really are talking about is very much rem-
iniscent of those 1980’s Back to the Future movies, you
know, the ones with Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd.
Let me explain what I mean. In the last decade or so,
westerners like us Americans have really just begun to wake
up and appreciate the horrendous consequences that our pub-
lic policies and individual consumer choices over the last
fifty years or so have had on public health, the environment,
the social fabric of our communities and families. Dare I
even mention what horrors we have inflicted on the animal
kingdom in the name of our gluttony, greed, envy and sloth?
We are now paying a terrible price for our unchecked con-
sumer appetites and our stubborn unwillingness to look
ahead to where the road we have chosen will inevitably take
us: towards a poisoned environment, crumbling communi-
ties, economic instability, a public health crisis, and an in-
creasingly decimated and endangered animal kingdom.
But what if you could go back in time, and, like Marty
McFly, personally intervene in order to alter the course of
history? Vietnam today stands at the same developmental
crossroads where the United States stood a half-century ago.
They will soon similarly face challenges and decisions about
the nature of industrialization and modernization in their own
country and the choices they make will have consequences
that will remain with them for generations, whether for good
and ill.
Our hope is that, by introducing culturally-relevant
Humane Education programs, and by helping to create a
vanguard of educated, skilled advocates today, perhaps we
can help Vietnam’s next generations re-imagine different
answers to the most pressing development challenges and
help them choose ways that could curtail decades of un-
necessary and destructive abuse in the name of uniformed
and rampant commercial consumption and misguided public
policies. Of course, this is a long-term strategy. For now,
I will be happy to save some dogs’ lives.
The future begins now.

Bob Lucius is the Executive Director of the Kairos Coal-

ition. To reach him, please email him at execdirector@
kairoscoalition.org.

TTHE
HE A
ANIMALS
NIMALS VOICE
OICE MAGAZINE 23
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