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We all have formative experiences that interact over time to define who we are. Childhood clearly fits that description, as does the moment in our lives when childhood ends. High school -- the horror that keeps on giving -- certainly counts, as does any long-term relationship, be it with sibling, parent, child, or significant other.
Sad to say, many of us boys and girls get an extra dollop in the form of time spent in a war. Certainly, for me, the year I spent in Vietnam was a defining point in my life. Hence the topic, “What Daddy Learned From The War.”
LESSON 1: There really are people for whom the end justifies the means. Whether it is Dick Cheney talking about torture or the guy at the office who just stabbed you in the back, there are a lot of people who will do anything once they have convinced themselves that it is necessary or moral or just. Watch your back. Trust no one. Fear not the things men do in the name of evil, but o beware the things men do in the name of good.
LESSON 2: Rules are for people who need them. The military and other leader cults are filled with folks who like it when someone tells them what to do. Once they latch on to an authority figure, they will follow that person through the gates of Hell, as it were. Then there are those who don’t need rules to know what to do. The former -- for want of a better term let’s call them dittoheads -- view the latter as unprincipled relativistic Godless heathens. The latter view the former as well, dittoheads. This is what we call an irreconcilable difference in world views.
LESSON 3: Live in the now. While I was in Vietnam, the day of the week or even the month was for the most part irrelevant, at least until it got near the time to go home. What mattered was right now, because that was all you had for sure. The past was off limits and the immediate future was uncertain. There was the now and the deep future, that time when you would get back to the world. I think of this as living in dog time, which can’t be that bad given that your dog is generally a hell of a lot happier than you are.
