ELIZABETH

Jessica Pearce Rotondi, thank you so much for joining us today. You have written an absolutely extraordinary book and what all the more extraordinary about it, as I told you so many times is the fact that it is your life and your family's lived experience. It is a page turner and I hesitate to use the word, thriller, because there's nothing thrilling about what is in the pages. But it requires of the reader a certain amount of energy to read it because my stomach personally was in knots with every turn of the page. I'm so appreciative to you for putting this out into the world because it clearly took immense courage. Jessica, I would love if you can just give us a brief intro of why you wrote this book, what it's all about. And then we'll start from there.

JESSICA PEARCE ROTONDI

Sure, absolutely. So What We Inherit is a deeply personal book, and actually begins in the wake of my mother's death. When I uncovered boxes of declassified CIA documents, and letters and maps, that all pointed to a family secrets, and that was my Uncle Jack, who disappeared when his plane was shot down over Laos on March 29, 1972, and just never came home. And you know, I grown up with stories of my grandfather's heroism in World War Two, he was, you know, parachuted out of a burning plane was captured by the Nazis, and spent three years of his life in Stalag 17 prison camp. And so, because my grandfather survived his ordeal, he always believed that his son who was involved in the secret bombing of Laos, would come home too, and spent the rest of his life looking for him. So in 2013, right before I met you, actually, I went to Laos, and I recreated a trip my grandfather had taken in the 70s, in search of his son. And, you know, what I found there, in the midst of all my wild grief of my papa, my mother, about my grandfather was, you know, things that brought me both closer to the family that I lost, but also the mysteries of a war that left Laos the most heavily bombed country in the world. I mean, as you know it was bombed more than Germany and Japan combined, during World War Two, but as an American and American whose family was actually involved in this bombing, I never learned about it in school. It was only in these hidden CIA documents, which are, you know, our country's history, and my family's history that I was unable to start to unravel some of the inherited trauma of that loss, but also come to a new understanding and appreciation of what the people of Laos went through. So, the book is a mixture of memoir, it is a mixture of investigative reporting, I spent a decade talking to refugees and CIA agents, and veterans of this war, and also a travelogue. I know the book came out during COVID in April 2020, when most of us could not leave our homes. And so for me, this is a way to bring a bit of Laos to people who had never heard of it, or maybe loved it and missed it and I just hope that it can bring together folks like my family who are left grieving, but also those who had their home largely destroyed by war that happened, you know, almost half a century ago now, but it's still killing individuals based on these bombs that were left behind. Bombs which you now make into beautiful jewelry to raise awareness for Laos. So, we have a lot in common when it comes to loving this country and all the beautiful people that are still healing from what happened.

ELIZABETH

I think the way that you depict the place is so beautiful and relatable for anyone that has traveled there and hopefully it will encourage people to go in order to understand how history is really alive there in a way through the legacy of this war. What does it look like when truth is obscured from history? I mean, you clearly explore that in the book on a very personal basis, and I suppose I wonder, given the fact that it was not included in the history books that you and I read that it took your personal connection through the CIA documents and the trip to Laos to really put it in perspective, and for me, it was this the shock of realizing the 80 million unexploded bombs when I was there. What does it look like? What do we, how do we teach? How do we approach teaching history to the next generation? Knowing that sometimes things are missing from the history books? How do we do that as educators? How do we do it as parents? Do you have any thoughts on that?

JESSICA PEARCE ROTONDI

I think it's a huge responsibility and essential one of our time. I mean, in my own family, the silences around my uncle Jack, you know. I knew he was missing, but I didn't know anything about the war he was missing in. And I think, especially in the grief process, right? I mean, in my family, it was one person, it was a firstborn son. In Laos, it's a 10th of the population, like how do you raise your own children in a way that both gives them the happy childhood, like my mother, you know, she's kind of protected me from this history, because she wanted me to grow up, you know, without a quote unquote, normal childhood, unlike the one where hers was so disrupted, but I think we have a responsibility to teach the next generation what happened beforehand. There's a really beautiful book. Oh my gosh, I'm blanking on the name now. By a young Lao woman who wrote it for her daughter, she had to flee during the war, but she wants her daughter to understand what it was like to grow up in Laos and eat crickets. And you might even know the name of it.

ELIZABETH

Mommy Eats Fried Grasshoppers.

JESSICA PEARCE ROTONDI

Yes, Mommy Eats Fried Grasshoppers. And it just brings to life, you know, the joy of growing up allows to like, yes, there were bombs. Yes, there were other things. But, you know, grandmother's food, or the way the yard looked in the sun when the sun came up. There's all these really intimate portraits of the joy of that too and I think, to conjure a loss world, especially as a refugee, it doesn't have to be all the war in the paint, either. It can be the beauty of it. But when it comes to being an American family directly involved in the bombing, one way that I've made peace, I now work for the History Channel, where I do a lot of stories, based on kind of hidden history. Yeah, the war in Laos is not the only conflict that is not often taught in schools. So, bringing in experts and folks who were there to really tell the story to schoolchildren in an accessible way is huge. And I'm also part of the board of Legacies of War, which is an organization you know, very well, I know you collaborated with them on the Trailblazer bangle, which I'm wearing now. And this organization raises awareness of the bombing because you can't really raise funds unless you tell people the story of what happened there. And then also directly funds, the de-bombing of these beautiful lands that are still, you know, parked by craters and unexploded bombs. Unfortunately, in February of this year, they're actually five school children that set off a bomb in Vientiane near the Capitol. Two were killed, three were severely severely maimed. So, it's not this frozen in history moment. It's still hurting largely children today. Which is why I think it's all the more urgent to teach not just the adults but young kids about, about this history. So, they're not in the fields thinking they're playing with the ball. They know that it's a bomb, they know the weight of that. But also, we can raise the funds to finally clear them.

ELIZABETH

Yes, absolutely. And if your grandfather was with you today and your mother I should say, and grandma Rosie, how do you think they would react to the role you've taken with regard to Legacies of War and kind of joining together with the Lao diaspora that came here after the war?

JESSICA PEARCE ROTONDI

Absolutely. So, you know, my grandparents originally were, you know, red, white, and blue, all American people. You know, my grandpa was a World War Two, hero was the word that was used. He was marching every Memorial Day Parade carrying the American flag, but once he lost his son, and his own government and the Air Force, were trying to obscure from him where he was lost, how he was lost, you know, I found 13 declassified documents relating to my uncle's disappearance that were largely kept hidden from my grandparents. They really became advocates. And I think the most powerful thing about work the most educated folks in the world, but they loved their son, and because of this love for their child, they became kind of actors on the national stage protesting their government, you could still love your country, but question some of its choices, especially when it came to the military. And I think the work that I'm doing with the Lao diaspora for now really speaks to, I think a continuation of their work. It's raising awareness. You know, they spent decades every weekend traveling to DC to New York City to protest to march in the streets. And while that kind of activism I think has faded, especially in the face of COVID largely, there is so much work left to do, to not only bring the missing home, there were 1300 men, well 1303 I shouldn't forget those last three, missing at the close of the Vietnam War, those were just the Americans. And, you know, beyond bringing the missing home, it really is now a matter of bringing these missing bombs from the fields, as we talked about before, it's affecting families still, and I don't want any other family, to have to go through what mine did, which is the loss of a child, which I think is one of the hardest things that you can experience.

ELIZABETH

Absolutely. And this tension between how you reconcile with the past, I think is encapsulated in this Wynton Marsalis, quote, the prolific jazz musician, and he said, "Sometimes a thing and the opposite of a thing are true at the same time." And, you know, the fact of there being always multiple perspectives, when it comes to war, and therefore the memory of that war, the history of it. It's exciting to live in the time that we do, where there's a recognition, more and more that a diverse voice, or a more diverse set of voices, needs to be heard and listened to. And that's actually the way to piece together an accurate history because all of the pain and the struggle that your family went through actually mirrored the pain and struggle that the Lao diaspora and people in Laos living today have experienced. So it is really an incredible, incredible quote. And that aspect of a reconciliation, joining the board of Legacies of War was one part of your reconciliation with the past, writing the book, surely was another. What about this reconciliation? Where are you with it?

JESSICA PEARCE ROTONDI

Sure. And there's this moment in the book, and in my trip to Laos, that I think stands out to me, it's the part that I still dream about, you know, part of my role was finding out the last place my uncle was seen alive. So, I'm looking for this bomb crater in the middle of this jungle, it's forbidden, it's off limits. And my only hope of finding it is this guide. And you know, throughout the journey, this guide does not really trust me, he's a local man who, you know, takes tourists out all the time, usually Thai tourist, not really Americans. And it's clear, he doesn't like me very much. And why would he write I mean, my country is the one that bombed his kind of into the ground. But as we got closer, he started revealing things about himself. His family was actually from the town that Jack was bombing the night he disappeared. And when we finally get to this place that we've been searching and searching for, I heard this loud, really disturbing noise. It was like a wailing, it sounded like a child was crying. And then I realized the sound was coming from me. I'd spent so much time studying my uncle's disappearance, studying this war, but actually standing in the middle of a crater, left by his plane, maybe the last place he ever saw, that just broke something in me and I fell to my knees and this guide, who did not trust me the entire time, held me in his arms, he picked me up and held me and he said, I see now that you love your family, too. And I love my family the same way. And it was just one of those moments where, you know, our families were trying to kill one another a generation ago. And here we were standing in this hole, kind of still grappling with this history together. And that was a really powerful moment that I always try to bring through. You know, I am a white woman who traveled to a Southeast Asian country, which is something that's been done so many times from one perspective. And my goal with this book was not to tell my family's side of the story, but really to bring in the voice of those who live through it on the Lao side, both in the United States and Laos. So I hope that's what I was able to accomplish with this, but I think as you said, exactly, its diversity of voices. It's listening. So much of understanding history isn't just sharing our own stories, but then taking in the stories of others to better understand how we kind of fit into the puzzle and how we can move forward. And for me that was working towards the removal of the bombs my uncle helped place.

ELIZABETH

And so, another word that kind of came up in my mind as I was reading, it was vindication. There's reconciliation and then there's vindication regarding this, this obscured history, this lack of knowing and the way that things were really truly hidden in a very, very personal way multiple times for your family. Do you feel vindicated?

JESSICA PEARCE ROTONDI

Yeah, I definitely think I feel a sense of peace. You know what I went to Laos I was, I think I was 24 years old. It was a while ago now. And I was just so hurt from missing my mom. And I just, I thought I could march in there and find all the answers my family had been searching for 36 years and just finally solve what happened there. And what I found instead was this more complicated story of, you know, reconciling with the past on the ground there, as you mentioned, it's a beautiful country, you're walking through these trees that just feel like they've been there for centuries. And then all of a sudden, you've come across this clearing, that is a bomb that is now used as maybe a fishing hole or adjacent to a rice field. And that was something. Yeah, I don't think I quite feel the vindication. But what I do feel is a sense of mission, turning that grief, and that kind of sorrow into action, which I think is one way of kind of healing from it, right? I can't do anything to bring my uncle back or my mother back. But my god, there's so much I can do on this issue and I think it's what they would have wanted me to do.

ELIZABETH

And Legacies of War has one of the most poignant three words to describe their mission. And its history, healing, and hope.

JESSICA PEARCE ROTONDI

Yes.

ELIZABETH

And I think about that all the time, even on a personal basis, because it's something that everyone goes through at different points of their lives, in different ways. And to realize that that's part of this virtuous circle, if you will, is actually incredibly empowering. You can't change that past, but you can do something to influence the future. So, I really appreciate their work and I'm so happy to hear that you have joined the board. It's really great news. And it's, it will only continue to advance this much needed progress in Laos to clear those 80 million unexploded bombs. So, when it comes to, you know, artifacts, I think of artifacts often because of the fact that we make jewelry and that jewelry is made of metal that is very, very specific. It's quite literally pieces of history. And I've talked about them as being modern heirlooms, because I feel any gift I've received that's been from, you know, someone at a significant moment, is that much more meaningful to me. And I'm wondering, you know, there are a lot of moments in your book where the artifact is not so much a gift, but it's in a way, something that's completing a piece of your personal family history. Those artifacts are human, in fact, and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the role that artifacts have played for you quite scientifically in the process of recovering Jack's body, but then also on a more symbolic basis.

JESSICA PEARCE ROTONDI

Absolutely. So, a lot of my research was just spending hours and hours with 1000s of pages of documents, a lot of them are typed up CIA. But one morning I was in bed, as I often did, before I went to work at the Huffington Post, I was a journalist at the time, and something called a metallic slipped out, one of the files and onto my lap. And it was my uncle Jack's dog tags, which I didn't know we had. And there was something still alive in that metal, right. It's something that touched his neck that was close to his heart that he wore, up until, you know, God knows when his last moments and that for me, I could imagine my grandfather, getting those returned to him in Christmas of '84. I can remember my mother holding these things and it was a talisman to kind of connect me with that and much in the same way I wear my ARTICLE22 bracelets on one arm, my other arm is an MIA bracelet on from my uncle Jack. So, after I published the book, readers I'd never met before said you know, I've been wearing your uncle's name on my wrist for 40 years I'd like to give this back to you there's a tradition in MIA community, where back in the 70s to raise funds to look for the missing. All of these destroyed was created by college students to kind of, it was the name of a soldier and the date they went missing and you wore it until that soldier was found. And then you return it to the family as a thank you when they returned home. And you know, it's kind of like the history is always unbalanced, right? There's my family's grief and then there's just hope that we can fix, not fix the past but address the wrongs of the past and really bring peace to a new group of people. And so, for me, yeah, everything from that dog tag to wearing a piece of the bombs on my arm in my day to day life. I also wear it on my neck and the virtuous circle necklace. To even things like handwriting, I'm sure we've all known if you've lost a loved one if you find a note even if it's like a recipe, or even my grandmother's case, she had a bake sale back in the 70s, to raise money to look for her son. And she'd kept it and seeing how hard she bear down in a pencil when she was, you know, clearly stressed or angry or grieving really spoke to me as well. So, I think when you look at artifacts, it's not just the material, but also kind of what they're imbued with and often is these ghosts that we're trying to resurrect, in many ways.

ELIZABETH

Beautifully said. And that answer really relates to my last question, which is, you are an ultimate storyteller. And your mom was so active and as you mentioned, in the beginning, she was really protecting you from a lot of this. You're about to become a mother. I am also a mother. And so I you know, have been thinking a lot as my daughter is approaching three, how to address various topics with her. And I'm wondering what you want to do with your son who is soon to be born? How do you want to tell stories to him? How do you want to give him a picture and a framework for the world?

JESSICA PEARCE ROTONDI

That's a great question. Yes, I'm 38 and a half weeks pregnant, so very close to motherhood, it's going to be a little boy as well. So, I think it's really reframed. You know, the idea of a firstborn son, I think of my grandfather, so often, I think of my mother, it's her actual birthday today. And when I think about how I'd like to raise him, you know, there's so much I learned from my parents both for the positive and things I'd like to change, and I hope I get to share What We Inherit, and the story of his grandmother and his mom and his grandfather and his uncle with him someday when he's old enough. But I think the biggest thing for me was, my mother didn't talk about Jack, because it was so painful, but she lost jack at the age I lost her, you know, we were 23 years old. And the things we could have talked about if we had that space together. So, for me, it's important that my son sees when I'm sad, or when I'm grieving, I want to say mom's name, I want him to know who she was. Because I think growing up with an understanding that loss is a natural part of life. But also, there can be joy still in the people that we've lost. I think remembering the past is something that I want to kind of imbue in him strongly that he can be his own person, he doesn't have to follow in the footsteps of the family. I know my uncle Jack went into the military because of his father's World War Two experience had a very different one. So, I think we can break the cycle of having to become our parents, while also loving and acknowledging kind of the mixed legacy of all the gifts they gave us, but often the more complicated things that we're still perhaps working through.

ELIZABETH

So beautifully said and I am certain that your son is going to inherit a beautiful way of thinking about the world. The book title couldn't be more perfect because what we inherit it's physical, it's metaphorical, it's memory. It's all of these things. And I hope that this becomes a standard classic for all students to read because my opinion is this is a perfect example for students studying any time in history to learn so much from your book, that I am so grateful to you for writing. Thank you.