PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- The fields of Choeung Ek on the outskirts of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, carry a dark secret.

Across the baked earth scraps of cloth and human bone poke through the soil and are slowly bleached white by the harsh tropical sun.

They found almost 9,000 bodies here when the started digging in the 1980's. I was overwhelmed with grief as I wove my way around the many pits that used to hold bodies. It seemed so strange to me that the birds could still sing in a place like that. Even the grass that grew in the pits I imagined was stained red from the blood that was shed in its soil. A pagoda was built to house the remains of the bodies, and written clearly atop a stack of skulls was a sign that read "20-yr olds." That did a number on me.