My neighbor is a
Vietnam vet suffering from the effects of Agent Orange. He is in his early 70s
and looks at least 10 years older. In and out of hospitals with lapses in
memory, the guy still maintains a ' gung ho ' Amerikan exceptionalism mindset.
Will he ever learn the truth about how his life and that of millions of others,
military and civilian, was damaged or destroyed by our country? On
Monday he will both display and salute our flag, the one that the Military
Industrial Empire had hijacked long ago. With the exception of WW2, Memorial
Day will be an endless bunch of hogwash celebrations and remembrances to honor
men and women who dutifully followed orders while never questioning the evil
ones who controlled them. Ignorance is most certainly bliss! We already see that
over 50% of our taxes go down this rabbit hole of bloated, obscene and
unnecessary military spending. Having nearly 1000 bases replete with
advanced weapons systems, and of course those poor kids in uniform, in over 100
countries we should NOT be in, does not make us safer. Matter of fact, it has
and will make us LESS safe! Too many afflicted people in the Middle East
despise us for what we have done to them in recent years. All the honor guards
and pomp and circumstance that this empire throws at us do not save the day.
The con job of being in a ' War with Terror ' tells only half the story.
The other half is listing what we have done to terrorize the people in
the Middle East! Dropping the ' Mother of All Bombs' or drone missile strikes
only exacerbates things, doesn't it? I salute our young
service people, not the ones who randomly or without just cause have
murdered women, children, and the elderly or innocent Arab men in places they
should never have been sent to. During the Vietnam War era, we peace activists never
pointed fingers at the overwhelming majority of our returning G.I.s. We
only took issue with those who professed such animus for the Communist gooks
they were so proud to have killed, tortured or burned alive. Many guys from our
neighborhood signed up, hoping to ' fight the good fight', only to return home
in a box. These 18, 19 and 20 year old kids did not know what the hell this war
was all about. They, including this writer, believed, in the early stage of it all
that we were doing a noble thing to help the South Vietnamese fend off the
invading North Vietnamese communists. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis gave us the
hype and spin that we were protecting our great nation from a possible
Communist attack. The Russians, like the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong,
never played fair ... only we did! That was the Kool- Aid that most of us
drank at the time. In this baby
boomer's lifetime I have never seen such a militaristic mindset amongst
so many citizens. Too many car license plates have those military logos on
them. Too many parents have those signs on the back of their cars " Proud
Parent (Grandparent) of a Marine (Soldier) ". Every sporting event has to
now have the honor guard with the flag before the National Anthem is sung.
Football fields will have one giant flag cover the whole field! The fans stand
there with their hands over their hearts, and faces down in reverence. It
seems the Amerikan way of war is now the norm. This Military Industrial
Empire has won over the hearts and minds of too many good people! If it
doesn't stop our nation will not only become bankrupt fiscally, but morally as
well!