My business ethics class is in the middle of reading The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. The students seem to be enjoying it a lot. Many enjoy Michael Pollan's engaging writing style, but they also seem intrigued by what Pollan is reporting about agribusiness and the American food system.

What I find most thought-provoking in the book is Pollan's juxtaposition of the logic of industry versus the logic of evolution. Efficiency is the starting point of the logic of industry and a most American value. Pollan's investigation reveals how pursuing this value in the absence of others has turned good intentions (finding a way of producing abundant and cheap food) into a misbegotten adventure. By relying on a monoculture of corn, we have inadvertently created a fast-food jungle accompanied by health problems like obesity, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease; environmental problems; social justice issues related to the quality of food available to the poor and to the rights of farm workers; and a system that is inhumane in how we treat animals.

I am also intrigued by the biodiverse grass farm of Joel Salatin that Pollan describes. Indeed, I have to be intellectually vigilant to not entirely sucumb to the romantic agarian ideal that it depicts. Indeed, I'm not sure Pollan has entirely resisted the seduction. But it does seem to make so much sense to feed animals what they are biologically intended to eat and to raise them in humane environs. I agree with one of my colleagues that it is hard to find fault with Pollan's methodology and perspective.

But there are those who find fault. In a blog called The Modest Proposal, Pollan is taken to task for only speaking to one representative of each of the producers of his four meals. And there is always the obvious practical critique of Pollan and the local food movement: Is eating locally and seasonally even feasible given the vastness of this nation - both geographically and in term of population? Are we simply too big for it to work?

This morning I heard a report on NPR about the role of the men on the U.S. Kirk in the evacuation of South Vietnam in 1975. It was a moving story about how these men aided Vietnamese refugees as they fled Vietnam during the final offensive in Saigon. I encourage you to go to the link and hear or read the story.

The story relates a recent reunion of the sailors on the U.S. Kirk where they honored a Vietnamese man named Ba Nguyen. Mr. Nguyen piloted a helicopter with his wife and children in it and chased the U.S. Kirk out of Saigon. He was unable to land on the Navy ship because it was too small. As the sailors tried to wave him off, Mr. Nguyen's wife literally dropped their 10-month-old daughter onto the ship. Mr. Nguyen's wife and three children then jumped onto the vessel. The crew on the ship caught the baby and the other four and then headed back to South Vietnam to pick up more refugees.

It's an amazing story that is just now being told. Why hasn't it been told until now? Because 35 years ago, most Americans were sick of Vietnam and didn't want to hear about it.

OK. Time for some full disclosure. I have a personal interest in this story. My father was the Consul General in MR2, the second military region of South Vietnam, from 1973 to 1975. My dad worked with Ambassador Graham Martin during the evacuation and in the office in the U.S. Department of State that handled the settlement of Vietnamese refugees. There have been a few critics of the handling of refugees from Vietnam, but really - they did the best they can. They got as many out as they could, not worrying about the paperwork - just getting as many folks out as they could.

What struck me about the NPR story was that it had not been told because no one wanted to hear about Vietnam. That was exactly my parents' experience. When they finally left Vietnam they traveled around Asia for a while - not having the stomach to go back to the States yet. Clearly they knew intuitively that this would be a contentious story. Sure enough, that summer my mom would come home from a social gathering with stories about being shut out of conversations as soon as people heard where she had been.

My closing thought: Let's get the Iraqis who worked with Americans out of Iraq as best we can AND let's not ignore and silence our vets coming home from Iraq.