Today is September 11, a day, like December 7, .. “that will live in infamy.” I grew up watching images of WW2 on TV, and
listening to my father drone on about why that war and the Korean conflict were
just wars. As if he would know anything
about justice. But like most boys I
believed that they were necessary wars. We
had to stop Hitler and Tojo before they tried to conquer us.
The atomic conclusion of WW2 and the fear of annihilation by
the communists had a sobering effect on kids when I was growing up. Throughout grade school we practiced those “drop
and tuck” drills in the event of a nuclear attack. In October 1962 when I was 11 years old
Nikita Khrushchev had plans to park nuclear warheads in Cuba. President Kennedy was having none of it. Most kids in my class were pretty sure that
the US was going to war with the Soviets and that we would all be vaporized
within a few days by an atomic bomb. We
were not happy. If I had to identify one
event in time that pushed my generation toward depression would be that
one. Then the fiasco in Viet Nam did
more harm to our already damaged psyches.
I was 13 when that war really heated up, and confident that I wouldn’t
have to go. I felt the same way at the
age of 14. At age 15 it looked like the
Viet Nam war would last forever. This
was when I first began to question our involvement there. I wondered…
“You want us to go off and get killed because… ? For what?” By the time I was 17 I was totally against
that war, and, totally convinced that because of my personal circumstances that
I would most likely be drafted and sent there by my government. At 23, having “survived” (yes, an over-used
word) four years of military service, I resolved that I would “leave the
country” (and there’s an over-used expression) before doing that again. Later I would grouse about young US men and
women being sent around the globe to some conflict or another, Grenada, Panama,
Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, always wondering why, and never getting a satisfactory
answer. You see, I had ceased to believe
most of what the US government tells us.
Thank Richard Nixon for getting the ball rolling for me on that
one. But the lies and propaganda have
been going on much longer than the days of Tricky Dick. How long, you ask? Well, for example, how many of you still
believe that the USA won the war of 1812?The September 11 attack left me as shocked and angry as anyone. I was concerned for my country, and selfishly perhaps, I was concerned particularly for my two sons. As a father I worried about them being sent to war, always pondering the question… “Why? Could this have been avoided?” Sure, I wanted my country to go get those who had attacked us, but I was thinking along the lines justice for a certain group of bad people, not a country. But off we went to war in Afghanistan, but not with Afghanistan, a very cleaver political maneuver. And we are still there. Why? Perhaps one reason is that my children were taught almost nothing about Viet Nam when they were in school.
I was dismayed at the number of people I knew who supported
GWB’s decision to send troops to Iraq. I
mean, a blind man could see that the US would go to that country, kick ass and
take names, and then the real war would begin.
But perhaps, maybe, there is light at the end of the tunnel…. because of
Syria. Yesterday I was talking with two
of my friends, one of whom is a war hawk wounded veteran retired from the USMC. The topic was Syria. I didn’t start the discussion, the Marine
did. And he has one of those domineering
personalities. He said… “Don’t you think
it’s about time the US started learning from it’s mistakes? Why should we get involved in Syria, at any
level?” Well, I was speechless - speechless
because there was nothing more to say, in my opinion.
