Hey Sarge,
I just saw your post from last week today. Welcome home, Bro', from
wherever you served. I hope you are dealing with whatever you
experienced in combat with peace and dignity for yourself and your
fellow veterans.
I did, exactly, what you suggested in your post. I took up arms to fight
for our country, to protect our freedoms. It was in a far off place, just
as Iraq is today, against another brown-skinned people, very alien,
very different from us Americans. I was a platoon leader in Vietnam. My
war was justified by the politicians, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, who also
lied to us about the reasons for being in Vietnam. We were told it was
as just as necessary for total victory, as President Bush, -- a
Chickenhawk who assiduously avoided the Vietnam War, like Cheney,
like Wolfowitz, like Rumsfeld -- says the war in Iraq is. It was
passionately argued that if we didn't stop the Commies in Southeast
Asia, we would, after all the dominos fell, be fighting them in San
Francisco and LA. Well, after 12 long years, claiming 58,200 +
American lives and 2-3 million Southeast Asian lives, mostly innocent
women, children and old men, we "lost" that war, even though we won
every battle. The North Vietnamese Commies easily defeated our allies,
the corrupt South Vietnamese Government Forces, once we were gone.
And you know what? The Commies didn't come to LA or to San
Francisco, but many Southeast Asian Immigrants came, hundreds of
thousand. And recently the Communist Government of a unified
Vietnam was admitted to the World Trade Organization, a favored
nation, just like Communist China. I wonder today, for what noble
cause 35-50 years ago did the 58,200 + warriors of the war of my
generation, Vietnam, die?
Please, Sarge, do like Lt. Ehren Watada did, and read up about the lies,
the illegality, the disregard of treatries, the Constitution, and
International Law that the Bush Administration has fostered to justify a
war of agression and occupation of another sovereign country. Yes,
Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator, but for many years he was OUR
dictator, just like Noreiga, Pinochet and other tyrants the U.S.
government gladly supports for the interests of the Uber-Class, the
super rich and oil companies, who receive most benefits from the tax-
cut. Read some real history about how "free" our country rarely has
been unless you were a white man from the upper classes, read
Howard Zinn, or a fellow Non-Commissioned Warrior, Retired Special
Forces E-7, Stan Goff.
And, hey, Bro' have a peaceful Day -- unless you are a sociopath and
like to kill, it really is better to be for peace, than for war that in its
essence is about killing, mostly innocent civilians, not combatants.
thomas brinson, Facilitator
Long Island, NY VFP, Chapter 138
www dot livfp dot active dot ws
VVAW Long Island Contact
II Corps Vietnam, 67-68
Peacemaker, Nonviolent Peace Force,
Mutur, Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, 2003-2005
631.889.0203
Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is Just.
Thomas Jefferson, 1785
|
|
