SASless - you and I are contemporaries. Both of us are 70 and both of us experienced the Hell of Viet Nam. You did it in country and I stayed stateside, having drawn 345 in the first draft lottery in 1969. Had I enlisted, I am fairly certain that I would have flown to 'Nam as a 1st Lieutenant, then be head shot as I dismounted the MATS C-141 at the start of my tour. My luck (I'm of Irish descent) runs that way.
I remember only too well the humiliation that you and your comrades-in-arms endured as you returned to the relative safety of U.S. shores. Spat upon, berated, made, sometimes by physical violence, to feel unwelcome in your homeland because you had had the temerity to participate in an unpopular, and frankly unnecessary, politically-motivated conflict. It was
not your fault!
I lived in Washington, DC, for eleven years. Many of my friends came to visit. I'd give them the "Cook's Tour": The U.S. Capitol, the White House, and the Smithsonian Museums (esp. Air and Space). After an all-day whirlwind itinerary, I'd take them to the Viet Nam Memorial at dusk. We would weep. Openly. For the folly of it all. For the 58,195 lost young souls who would never live to contribute to and enjoy the benefits of our great republic. We would speak of the inestimable courage of our friends, many of whom we would never see again except in our fleeting, precious memories of them.
My family has felt the indelible horror of war loss. My great uncle (who was a great gentleman and lived to 103!) had five children. Three girls and two boys. One of the boys was named after my great uncle, the other for his brother, my grandfather. Clarence Jr. ("Speedy") was left-seater in a B-24 Liberator. In an inexplicable twist of fate, he and his crew were shot down over New Guinea in an aircraft his sisters had helped to build outside of Dallas, Texas. All lost. A week later, his brother, Ed, went down with 300 of his crew members aboard the U.S.S. Indianapolis. They had delivered a war-ending weapon. The ship sank close to where the aircraft had gone in. Another terrible paradox! WWII was to end less than two months later....
My great uncle had two visits that June of 1945, both in the space of one week; one from an Army Air Force Captain and Chaplain, one from a Navy Captain and Chaplain. They bore bad news and offered what little comfort they could. When we Atlantans would go to visit the Dallas side of the family thirty years later, we were always impressed with their humor and intelligence and heart. We would listen, fascinated, to the stories they would tell. Yet we found out one subject was
verboten. I asked Uncle Clarence if he ever thought of his boys. He looked out of the window at the blue Texas sky for a long moment, dissolved into tears, and left the room. Sobbing. All those years later. None of us needed to ask again.
I am a sorta kinda a right-wing guy and have my hawkish tendencies, but I must admit these truths to myself. I have unbounded respect and gratitude for those of you, like
SASless, who have refreshed the Tree of Liberty with their courage, blood, and lives, in all of our conflicts, no matter how foolish. Of even greater import is my understanding that war is a repugnant expression of the illogical reptilian parts of our brain: our species should have more sense than to engage in it unless our very survival is threatened!
Back to our regularly-scheduled program and a cold beer....
- Ed
