October 10th, 2006
Allen Nelson was first invited onboard the Peace Boat as a guest educator in July, 2005. Participants of that 49th voyage were privileged to share his very personal experience as he returned to Vietnam for the first time, 38 years after he had been there as a US Marine, to apologize to the Vietnamese people for the violence he had brought to their land during the Vietnam War.
Allen Nelson
“I did not go to Vietnam to ask for forgiveness,” he told his audience during his lecture. “I went to apologize. Only I can forgive myself.”
As a peace activist in so many aspects of his life and work, he has been traveling to Japan for half of almost every year since 1996 to protest against the threat that American military bases bring to the people of Japan, to speak with Japanese youth about the importance of Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, and to speak with American soldiers and Marines about their options for leaving the military. He works to motivate people to be critical of their government when harm is done to their people or others, and is a great advocate of peace through reconciliation.
Allen Nelson at a panel discussion onboard concerning Article 9 of the Japanese constitution. From left to right: Rika Watanabe (staff), Norio Kaifu (guest educator), Allen Nelson, Atsushi Yoshioka (guest educator)
Among his many talents, he is a blues musician and the haunting sound of his guitar and voice were sometimes heard drifting through the ship, welcoming people to stop and listen for a moment, just as he always had time to stop and chat with anyone who had a moment to share with him.
During his time on Peace Boat, from Acapulco, Mexico until Honolulu, U.S.A., he held a series of lectures, and joined participants for a tour in San Francisco that visited the non-government organizations (NGOs) Code Pink and Global Exchange, and a tour in Hawai’i with Global University students to meet with Hawai’ian activists working for an independent and demilitarized Hawai’i.
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