I sing a song for Takada, a modern Samurai
　Sent to battle the cruelty of brother to brother
　In the land of the long suffering Khmer.
　His only sword was not of steel to splice men’s bodies,
　But the light of his eyes to melt men’s spirits

　He fought mosquitoes, hard beds and bad water
　Away from his usual creature comforts
　Back to conditions even his grandparents had barely known
　And all of this of his free will.
　He chose to take the sick man in his car
　To bring him to a hospital to save his life
　Little knowing it would cost him his own
　As he drove from hole to hole
　On what was supposed to be a road

　He heard a ‘pluff’ and thought ‘there goes a tire’
　But hit his wheel and felt a flash of pain
　He turned his head and saw a graceful bending light,
　And on the ground undulating, gliding shadows.
　Delicate, willowy fingers lifted his face,
　As an Apsara, a dancer of the Court at Angkor,
　Bridging the distance between Gods and men,
　Took his soul up to the Heavens
　While her sisters cast a shade on his earthly remains.

　I sing in praise of Takada, a fallen hero,
　Who volunteered to test the ground
　Of the first tentative rules of an Art of Peace
　For a United Nations thousands of years after
　The separate nations had each tried and unleashed
　Their various arts of war, bringing havoc and destruction
　Upon untold peoples and lands.

　I sing in praise of you, future leaders,
　Who will dare lay the rules of the Arts of Peace
　And test them out until they are equal
　In strength and in clout to the infamous arts of war
　And the song of Takada rings out
　In the “Legends of the Makers of Peace.”

　I sing in praise of you, future heroes,
　Who will dare to think of peace and of others
　Before you think of yourself
　And so join the ranks of those
　Who are called the “children of God”.

　Tatiana Androsov
　Former Deputy Provincial Electoral Officer
　Prey Veng Province
　United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC)
　1992-1993