I'm going to an observance for the 3,000th soldier killed in Iraq. Maybe next year I'll end up going to the observance of the 10,000th soldier killed in Iraq, and the 15,000th soldier killed in Iran. I don't know. I do know this; it doesn't look good for peace. Peace is an elusive thing, but in the United States, peace is just an illusion. This country doesn't know what peace is, even in "peacetime" we always manage to have some unit, somewhere in this world, running some kind of military operation against someone.
When I was in the Army, I was in air defense. We manned the missile sights around the major cities in the U.S. and along the DMZ in Korea; we were in Germany, Greece, Greenland, Japan, lots of places. Our commanders would tell us that even during peacetime, we were in "real-time, all the time", referring to our job of protecting the skies. Sometimes we would be at Defcon 3, a 15 minute state of alert, which meant we had to be able to track and launch a nuke against the enemy within 15 minutes. Sometimes it could get really scary, you never knew when the day would come and a warhead would be detonated, and life would take a new turn for the worse.
Somehow we managed to get through all of that. Vietnam came and went. I remember how it took up so much of everyone's time. I was in the Army, but I was against that war. I marched, went to demonstrations and I felt a certain kinship with those of my generation that were against the war. When the administration started banging the war drums this time, my wife and I thought that our generation, the same generation that stood up to Nixon, the same brave generation that put an end to the Vietnam War, would rise again, and come out of the woodwork, and stand for those principles we stood for thirty years ago.
It didn't happen. I watched as the run up to the invasion started, and then gathered steam. I watched as Colin Powell shilled for his bosses at the U.N. I didn't believe him. I sat on the couch with my wife and gave her a knowing smile as if to say, watch, watch our old comrades stand up and stop this miscarriage of power. They didn't stand up. I watched as Bush spoke to the people and told us, with his right shoulder jutting out in a bully-like stance that Saddam Hussein had but 72 hours to submit. I thought now my generation will stand up and stop this nonsense, I figured that Congress would stand up and call a halt to this game; they never, ever stood up. Nobody stood up.
I couldn't believe it. The war started, and people talked of the war and acted as if we actually had a legitimate reason for starting it. When the tanks rolled towards Baghdad, Americans cheered. It bothered me so much. I have to tell you, I have thought about it everyday since. My wife and I would ask each other what happened to the "flower children" that sang songs and marched for peace? I realized that they had gotten older, and they had cut their hair, and gotten jobs where they couldn't just run out on the street and act up. I realized that all the girls that had the long straight hair, and the flowers tucked into their headbands had become mothers and God-forbid, grandmothers now. I still thought they would show, a little more reserved, but show up, just the same.
They didn't show. A few people were becoming disgruntled as places like Fallujah came to be known. Everyday somebody else would ask a question about why we were there, where were the weapons of mass destruction? After another year, people were getting downright angry about this never-ending war, but it was multi-generational. I thought that when the government started trampling on our rights, and gutting the Constitution, that my generation would lead the charge. They were nowhere to be seen. I was disappointed and disgusted. I thought that they just didn't understand, and that somehow, this President had actually pulled the wool over their eyes.
Now, with the 2006 elections past us, the anger and the disgust of this war, and disgust with this administration is bearing down on this nations psyche. Not from any sense of moral outrage, but because we are losing and spending too much money. The days of seeking justice and understanding, of standing for principles that the older generation "couldn't get" were gone. It's about losing and spending money. There are some people that still have reservations and anger over our liberties being taken away by the neo-conservative right wing, but the ranks aren't noticeably swelled with people of my generation. That retro-revolution that I had pictured in my head never came. The old hippies were just like everyone else. It took untold billions of dollars and over a half million dead Iraqi's and 3,000 dead American kids. It also took God knows how many wounded and maimed, and soldiers mentally twisted like a pretzel, because of the horror that is war.
There was some of my generation that did stand up. It wasn't everyone that sucked the government line like a three year old with a lollipop. Still, it wasn't a fearful roar that I had envisioned. It really bothered me, and it made me angry. I thought of so many reasons why it didn't happen, and today I think I stumbled on to it while thinking about the memorial for those 3,000 heroes that I am going to honor.
No draft. No involvement. No resistance. I didn't worry about the draft when I was protesting and linking arms with my brothers and sisters. But they were. Nobody knew what the future had in store for them when Vietnam was at its peak. If I hadn't seen this retreat from speaking out on Iraq, I wouldn't have believed it. I believed that my generation was somehow better than other generations... more moral. We had stopped the war in Vietnam hadn't we? What a selfless thing to do!
Not so selfless. I have more respect for John Kerry now...today, than I did yesterday. He had finished his tour and was still leading the marches against the war. The Vietnam Vets against the War were against this one too. Where were all the rest of you? I don't really want to believe this, but the word "chicken hawk" comes to mind. You certainly fooled this old hippie, but not now, not anymore. Sometimes reality isn't so sweet.
http://liberalpro.blogspot.com
Tim was banned from the site for posting private email from the publisher to him on his blog, and then attacking the publisher and the site in emails and articles. OEN has no responsibility to publish articles from people who attack the site.
Tim's accusations that he was banned for his political positions are untrue. Check his articles. He repetitively wrote about and had published exactly the things he claimed he was banned for doing.
Former Chairman of the Liberal Party of America, Tim is a retired Army Sergeant. He currently lives in South Carolina. A regular contributor to OpEdNews, he is the author of Kimchee Kronicles and is currently at work on a new novel.
What happens to Idealism as a generation gets older? Maybe for most, I don't mean you sir, Idealism when young was not so much deep conviction as it was fashion. Plus you're right. For most Americans this war is a disconnect. Americans are only offended by the incompetence with no thought of the rightness or morality of this war effort. But not enough to rise up from their comfortable chairs and activate.
This has been a Half ass war effort strategically. Plus The Irony that Saddam was telling the truth and he was hanged(supposedly) and our Govt was lying seems to be just an after thought.
by
"Hoss" David P. (51 articles, 5 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 338 comments)
on Saturday, December 30, 2006 at 8:39:44 PM
Part of it is also media manipulation and plain old disinformation - propaganda. When our fourth estate abdicated its oversight role (when other reporters watched as the White House Press Corps limited Helen Thomas' access in retaliation) a lot of real information was withheld and/or skewed. Bush's grandfather bankrolled the Nazis, another group of fascists. His father ran covert ops in the CIA. My point is that the credentials are there for Bush and his administration to act as the fascists they are. They have repeatedly demonstrated that their only concern is their corporate interests.
And the Vietnam generation is to blame, too. We thought Vietnam was the war of our generation. We didn't realize that it was training wheels for defending the republic from the enemy within.
As Sinclair Lewis said: "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
by
Chip (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 7 comments)
on Sunday, December 31, 2006 at 1:00:34 AM
So is Kerry going to vote to fund the Iraq occupation?
Or is he going to vote against funding the war crimes he has consistently voted for and voted to fund over the past six years?
If somebody kills a bunch of people in my neighborhood, and then says, "Hey, I know I did wrong, but I've seen the light and I'm not going to kill people any more," I guess I'd respect them more when they're not killing people randomly than when they were, but I'd still want to see them tried for their previous crimes.
Just because Kerry has broken his promises before, doesn't mean that he always will. But it does mean that I'm not likely to ever trust his promises. I don't pay attention to him, so if he is now saying that he won't vote to fund the Bush/Halliburton war crimes budget, but he changes his mind at the last minute and votes for it anyway, it certainly wouldn't surprise me.
I see the aging flower kids at every Green Party meeting, every peace rally, every 9/11 Truth event, and every local activist event, so I don't wonder where they went because I see them every place I go. I also see them online, on forums and mailing lists. But many of them are harder to recognize these days because they are now heading a lot of hard-working and very effective anti-globalization, anti-torture, pro-environment, and many other formal non-profit organizations.
And I still see a lot of people of my generation also. Old beatniks, old Wobblies, old musicians, and more. Elders with gray hair are as common as youngsters with punk hairstyles in the alternative media and at protests and rallies.
And don't forget. On January 3rd and 4th, visit, email, or phone your representatives and tell them that you want Bush impeached and you don't want them to vote for his defense budget. And try to get everyone you know to do the same. Our poor dumb representatives are such slow learners that if they don't hear from millions of us speaking in the same voice, they can't tell right from wrong, so it is up to us to educate them.
by
Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments)
on Sunday, December 31, 2006 at 4:17:27 PM
I'm glad you wrote this, Tim. (And a good job of it you did).
I go a good deal farther back than you, but your generation gave me a new life when those days you speak of were flowering. I certainly took note of it when they backed off from 'changing the world', and I wondered about that for many years, as you do now. They all decided, en masse it seems, that they wanted a piece of that action their elders had been getting . . . you know what I mean: money, joining the consumer crowd, the great American Dream.
But I had been there, and I knew what a fraud and killer the whole thing was. There was no possibility that I would take another crack at it.
They all said, "Oh, we'll be a lot more effective at changing things from the inside, than we've been as outsiders." But I knew better, again. I'd had a lesson when I was back there in my own twenties:
The self we think we really are has no roots! That's right, it's a floating illusion. We think we remain the person we are . . . until one day someone who is like we once were provides the reminder, and we realize that he is not a mirror; we are not that person any longer.
Lessons in life are sometimes hard to take. And not many of us get second opportunities. Thank your stars that you are still alive to who you once were. It is a rare gift.
by
Irvthom (7 articles, 2 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 88 comments)
on Sunday, December 31, 2006 at 9:56:16 PM
That's deep brother, we the taken over from within.
Not in this life time, its freedom I voice my opinions for and it freedom I live for.
I've experienced what Tim has said, many of my friends from the NAM era have given and about face to fascist.
by
Fred F (1 articles, 1 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 361 comments)
on Monday, January 1, 2007 at 12:05:44 AM
BUT, you know the great thing I have started seeing?
The pre-baby boomer generation is beginning to come to our DFC meetings (along with us pissed off post baby boomers !). They are full of energy, full of ideas, and most important ,very angry this administration's indifference to voters.
by
Brenda Walters (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 59 comments)
on Monday, January 1, 2007 at 2:52:35 AM
7 comments
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