Soap Box

Colleen mentioned, in a comment, the Vietnam era and the anti-war movement. I remember being anti-war, but I never understood the people who spit on returning soldiers. So many were young draftees, changed forever by a tour of duty in hell. I was angry at the government's mismanagement. Initially, and remember I was very young, I thought that we entered wars to win, but we would not do what was necessary to triumph in Southeast Asia. Then I saw pictures like the famous one of a man (North Vietnamese sympathizer?) being shot in the head by someone in charge (a South Vietnamese officer?). The details of who was shooting whom did not strike me, but the frame of the moment of impact is indelible. For whom or what were we fighting? The domino theory fell woefully short. Then there was the picture of the young girl running naked down the street toward the camera holder. She had been struck with napalm and had peeled her clothing away from the seared flesh. I now realize such pictures were published by people who probably had agendas of their own, but does that matter? War is an excuse for human beings to revert to inhumane acts. Now we use terms like collateral damage. I cannot weep for crazy men like Saddam Husein or terrorists we have detained. I would like to see us uphold our standards of justice no matter who the offender, but I prefer to see the names and possibly the faces of the now dead who were only last year or the year before walking in a village in Iraq or down a mountainside in Afganistan. Names make people real, no matter the side. I believe the president, when he or she asks young people to fight/defend/die for their country, should be the one to make the personal phone call to the surviving family. A few "Hello, Mrs. Jones, this is the president of the United States. I put your son (or daughter or spouse) in harm's way. I regret to inform you. . ." conversations would be very sobering. That conversation, however, must be the priority each day, before fixing the economy and selling senate seats and ordering lobster from room service and getting together with chums in the oil business. If I were president, that is what I would do. And as long as our troops are dying in any part of the world, I would wear a black arm band.
More about Vietnam later. . .