Tri Cities Civil War Round Table welcomes world-renowned Kenneth Rutherford | Sunday Stories

Tri Cities Civil War Round Table will welcome world- renowned humanitarian Dr. Kenneth Rutherford to Kingsport on Monday for what’s being billed as a thought-provoking program for the entire community.

Rutherford, a professor in the department of political science at James Madison University, will discuss “America’s Buried History: Landmines in the Civil War.” Landmines are a subject Rutherford knows intimately. Personally.

The free program begins at 7 p.m. in the Renaissance Center Theater. Doors open at 6 p.m.

Rutherford began his international career in Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mauritania, with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Senegal, and as a humanitarian relief officer in Kenya and Somalia.

In 1993, he was working as a humanitarian relief officer in Somalia when he himself was injured by a landmine. After a medical evacuation during which he nearly bled to death, his lower right leg was amputated in Kenya to save his life. His lower left leg was amputated a few years later, in 1997, in the United States.

“It was an experience that fundamentally altered my life for the good,” Rutherford said. “It crystallized my vision of what I believe I was put on this Earth to do.”

Rutherford is known for his decades of work in the landmine discipline. He is cofounder of the Landmine Survivors Network and…