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There certainly is a lot of passion here about Vietnam. I never went to Vietnam. I was 10 years old when the war ended. However, that was a war that was broadcast in detail on television. I do believe I suffered trauma from what I saw. A typical evening would include on location shots of dead soldiers bodies lying on the side of the road, missing limbs, covered in what must have been blood (we had a BW TV back then), and covered with hungry flies. Their were images of civilian's and children's mutilated bodies scattered around as well. I remember seeing interviews of wounded soldiers missing arms and legs but still conscious and lying in stretchers. All the while my father, a WWII veteran, would calmly reassure me that this was the future I could look forward to as a good patriotic American.
I also remember watching the Demonstrations and Protests against the war on TV. The violence dished out by the well armed Police against the unarmed Protesters was reprehensible. There were images of Police repeatedly striking young men over the head with wooden bats until they were covered with their own blood and unconscious. Tear gas and other chemical weapons being used against trapped crowds of Demonstrating students. Despite the opposition the young crowds of determined citizens refused to disband and in spite of the horrific display of violent intimidation only grew in numbers.
I remember vowing to have nothing to do with the struggle in Vietnam; but, longing to take my place besides the crowds on our own street. I would beg my father to take me to the Demonstrations with our own billy clubs and motorcycle helmets and help defend these young brave souls from the wanton tyranny they faced. He laughed and assured me my mother would kill him if he did. In retrospect, he was probably right.
Don't get me wrong, I have the greatest respect for anyone who served--my father for instance! It's just that at the time, the struggle I was most motivated to participate in was on our own streets. I assure you that is the completely unbiased opinion of a very young and precocious child. I also assure you that being forced to helplessly watch the entire tragedy of Vietnam on TV did a great deal of psychological damage to me. The contemplation of suicide was a daily obstacle.
In college, I met a vet who I became very good friends with. I believe he was in the Navy during Vietnam. He enlisted instead of being drafted. He was quite intelligent as was trained and used to install and maintain communication equipment at various ports along Southeast Asia. He never saw combat. He told me stories of shore leave in the various port cities and the lectures his command would give them prior to leave. He said they were instructed in how to avoid venereal disease as well in how to purchase clean heroin and use needles. I assure you he was not a person prone to lying either. I still to this day however, find his story hard to believe. But then, what do I know?
All I know is this, war is hell; and, is a symptom of failed and corrupt leadership. Perpetual war is a sign of the decline of an empire. I will never have anything to do with war.
PS Ken and Palindromedary--your current Avatars look like they are on a collision course. Is that intentional?
I hear ya, David! I've always identified with Alice. I love how she stands up to the queen and other bullying authority figures and responds to their demands unruffled and unafraid, as though she presumes herself equal to them. It's a great piece of literature, brilliant in metaphor as well as language. And that hookah-smoking caterpillar sure rings mah bell! Written way before our time on this planet, it highlights a certain continuity to issues of power and control that keep plaguing us humans, from century to century... - Aliceinwonderland
50/50 ?!?! What kind of drugs are you People on!!!!
Of course they should be prosecuted!!! There should be HELL TO PAY! for even the slightest hint of subverting the best interest of the public!
That doesn't mean they won't try. In a way, I hope they do try - they'll end up losing even more credibility and that will hasten the total demise of the Republican Party.
They have no constitutional leg to stand on for impeachment. They've cried impeachment too often to be taken seriously. The best they can do is shed more realistic folks from their numbers. The more ridiculous these far right nuts act, the more they destroy the party. Eventually even their election rigging won't save them.
David, please. And thank you.
Carroll is one of my favorite authors because this place sure looks like wonderland to me...
Palindromedary- You too. Hats off to ya. - A.I.W.
Mr. Abbot, I salute you as a man of great wisdom. I love reading your blog entries. Keep 'em rolling. - Alice I.W.
Ken Ware said "The vast majority of Vietnam vets came home and continued their lives where they had left off and did not suffer from the rigors of war."
Really? I've been told that more Vietnam vets have died from suicide than from the war. Ditto veterans from Iraq. - Aliceinwonderland
Ken, it may be a semantics thing. I didn't mean that the vets had something wrong with them. I meant they had something right with them, because for most people it is a perfectly healthy response to be harmed by war. There are not many people who can serve on the front lines in a place like Nam and not pay a price for it to one extent or another. I'm not saying they can't function when they get back stateside, because many of them can. But there are effects.
I know a woman who is a 4th degree black belt in Oom Yung Doe Korean karate, a high-ranking tai chi and qigong master, a former world-class weightlifter, and one of the two or three most mentally tough people I have met in my 62 years. When she was sparring with her teacher, who is a full foot taller than her, he broke her knee. She said, "He didn't mean to do it; these things happen." And as soon as her knee was more or less healed, she was back sparring with him, no problem. So, not a coward. But she told me that when she saw a dead man at her apartment complex it scared the hell out of her and she had nightmares. It had an effect on her.
I was in a car with that woman's martial arts teacher when a guy tried to pick a fight with him. The teacher kept saying, "Sorry, sir," until the guy went away. This is teacher who can pick up a struggling 195-pound man by the neck with one hand and hold him at arm's length for five seconds. And he fa-jinged me without touching me. Another time, he roundhouse kicked, front kicked, and side kicked me with the same leg in less than half a second, without moving his hips. In China he engaged in full-contact fights with full-grown men when he was 15 years old. So, the guy can fight and he's not a coward. But he wouldn't fight with someone who just wanted to pick a fight.
A rooming house I lived in had a Vietnam vet resident who would wake everyone in the building at night with his blood-curdling screams as he relived his front-line experiences. It's difficult for me to remember that man's screams and know that that war was based on a bald-faced lie, and then try to excuse our being over there by saying, "Well, we were ordered to go there." If no one obeyed illegal orders, we would have no wars. I agree with you that if another country attacked us, we would have to fight. I would fight. But to fight for a lie? To fight just to further enrich traitors who already had more money than they could ever spend? I do not obey orders from such men or their lackeys.
It takes courage to fight. But it can also take courage to refuse to fight when the fight is not justified, particularly for war protesters whose protestations alienated them from their families, and for conscientious objectors who went to prison rather than going to vietnam- it seems to me they showed a lot of courage.
I have been in situations where it would have been so easy to fight and I really wanted to. When I think back on the few fights I have been in, the only one I am proud of is the one where suddenly I realized that I was not willing to hurt the guy, so I let him hit me and then I walked away. The guy who was watching the fight probably thought I was a coward, but I wish I had always shown that kind of courage.
I have met people who are not physical warriors by nature, but who in other very important ways might have far more courage than you and I put together. Non-warriors have contributed to America in ways that are vital to her survival- in ways that fighters could not possibly have contributed. If fighters want respect, they should give respect.
Kend the nosy Canadian says: "...these poor bus drivers only make $14,00 / hr and although that is true in a few short years thier wage doubles. $29.00 isn't bad is it?"
Yeah Kend, what's a few "short" years working your butt off for poverty wages?! I'm sure glad I don't work for YOU.
Within the past couple weeks, my husband and had to go to the local hospital and have blood samples drawn for medical tests our doctor ordered. Earlier this week we got the bill: SIXTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS.
Mister Kinook, you take way too much for granted.
Have a nice day. - Aliceinwonderland
Carolonthecoast says "I would love to see just one day where everyone who makes under $50,000/year doesn't go to work. No waitresses, garbage pick up, housekeeping, bus drivers, check out clerks, the list goes on..."
And I say, AMEN sister! If I had a penny for every time that fantasy has crossed my mind, I'd be among the infamous one percent.
Palindromedary said: "There may very well come a time when we all will regret giving up our 2nd Amendment rights. It was put there for a reason..to protect us against tyranny by the few. And the more you give up your ability to defend yourselves against tyranny, the more easily it is for any tyrant to run roughshod over us all."
Hey PD, I totally get - and share - your distrust of the government. But I still think the notion of "the masses" staging an armed rebellion against the government is insane. Sorry, but some of us happen to agree with Thom Hartmann on this issue. The military industrial complex is way more heavily armed than you small fry will ever be and that is one fight you're bound to lose. I think this mess we're in calls for more creative, innovative solutions . Remember: water shapes rock, not vice versa... I know, I'm being a little abstract but, philosophically speaking... - Aliceinwonderland
Mr. Ware, who said anything about you acting or not acting "lady like"? Huh?!
You are always stating loud & clear how you reserve the right to call people out on their B.S. Yet you don't seem willing to be called out on your own. Excuse me, but I reserve that right same as you. And no, I'm not complaining to the webmaster about you; don't be silly. I respect your right to act like a jerk if that's what you insist on doing. But frankly, I resent it when I hear men stereotyping women, because they don't know what they're talking about. There may well be gender differences; I don't have a problem with that. But nobody likes being pigeonholed. I just don't think it's cool to stereotype people, and that's all I am saying. I happen to know, and have known, scores of aggressive women who are accomplished, brave souls living life on their own terms and who don't take crap from anyone. They're all over the place, on the planet where I reside at least.
Your notion of what it means to be female is old school and passe'.
What's more, gender is not a black & white sort of phenomenon. There are many shades of gray. Anyone who lived in the San Francisco Bay Area between the fifties and the eighties, as I have, would know that... unless they spent those years in a bubble.
I reject the notion that we are a bunch of nitwits and that these discussions have no value. If that's how you feel about this blog, perhaps you need to find other extracurricular activities more worthy of your regal attention.
- Alicelinwonderland
Nixon may have started out 'laughing at the demonstrators' but he didn't laugh very long...especially after Kent State shooting and after the Pentagon Papers came out telling us how all the Presidents from Hoover...especially Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon....all lied...lying to us about the Domino Theory (under Johnson), lying to us about Soviet capabilities, Cuba....getting us involved in Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos.
The "Domino Theory" was just a way of scaring people out of their freedoms..and most of all...out of their money and understanding of what truth really is. And their modus operandi is to create a false flag operation to scare people even more..to trigger the commitment to military actions...such as the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
The current wars in the Middle East are no different than the ones that preceded them...they used a false flag operation on 9/11 to trigger fear and confusion, and jingoist patriotism, xenophobic hatreds.. that led to the ever strengthening police state that we currently live under.
Now, they are working on Africa. Look out!! Al Qaida are everywhere! And be especially fearful of one-eyed jihadi leaders! What event, or events, will they engineer, or take advantage of, this time to scare people into supporting them in invading African nations? The US has deserved all of the blowback that they have ever gotten from people they have wronged.
And before 9/11, you have to look back at all the things that piss other people off...like trying to steal or control their oil...or try to force a country to put in an oil pipeline. It was US officials that threatened the Taliban in Afghanistan that if they didn't "accept the carpet of gold being offered them" that "they could expect a carpet of bombs". The US declared war on them not the other way around. Just another example of how the US has tried to push it's weight around to force other people to knuckle under and be unfairly exploited.
And right now, we may be seeing some more of that blow back in Africa...the Embassy attack in Libya and now in Algeria...after all...the US did murder many of their families. Of course this all plays into the hands of those MIC who are just loving it because they can use it as an excuse to steal more of our money.
The US won't invade countries who have atomic weapons...talk about cowards...they only invade countries too weak to defend themselves. But the wars we conduct now are against the people in those countries..the few people who actually do the fighting are called insurgents or Al Qaida or whatever scary name works in the American press to depict sinister forces. And those wars last a long time...over 10 years...costing taxpayers $trillions. We never really win those wars but we sure do lose a lot of money to the MIC over them. It also gives criminals an ability to outright defraud the American people out of more $trillions by claiming the money has just gone missing...they don't know what happened to it. Yeah, right!
We only invade countries we can bomb.. killing lots of civilians that the world won't pay much attention to...because they are poor, Muslim, or Black. Hell, our Ivy-League educated, silver-spooned Frat boys turned politician or corporate exec have to get their feelings of manhood and entitlements somehow? All that excess testosterone has to show everyone back home how brave and manly their men are. How would they do that without lots of civilians to murder?
David Abbot - please do not compare all those who fought in our wars as coming home with something wrong with them. The vast majority of Vietnam vets came home and continued their lives where they had left off and did not suffer from the rigors of war. Like I said earlier the tour of duty was only 12 months than you’re in the U.S. or a base in the many bases around the World. Unlike the vets of the Iraq and Afghan war who served many tours because of the low number of people that joined rather than lose who were drafted to serve in Nam. We follow the orders of our Commander in Chief and our generals.
Palindromdary - As usual you play your pious attitude when you cannot say anything to validate your comments in defense of yourself. Did everyone who fought in WWII come home with a psychological disorder, no they did not. And with you, the only thing you can come up with is those who fought in any war were damaged. Some soldiers should not be in the military or in combat. They are not mentally capable to deal with war. They are not cowards because they did join knowing they might be sent into a war situation. Not everyone is capable of being a warrior; unfortunately they fall apart over witnessing death and what comes with being a warrior. You say there are lots of veterans who cannot deal with killing, how may are lots? Another time in which you have no facts just words like lots! Ha! I feel the same way about people who have never served and endured combat and their inability to understand the complete girth of the situation, why bother. Americans who say they are anti-war are hypocrites, because they would be the first people crying for help if attacked by an outside force. How does it feel knowing the only thing you have given to your country are your taxes? I would imagine a hollow feeling. I am just glad I did not have to count on someone like you to cover my 6 in combat. It appears that anyone who does not agree with you are brainwashed through propoganda. Any one who feels that the military is not a necessity to keep our nation safe is obviously out of touch with the reality of war. If you would not go to war over the fact we were attacked you are a coward. War is unavoidable if we are attacked by another nation or the people who commited these acts of war are being allowed to hide and train in their country, it is essential we go to war against the nation and people who commited these acts of war against us. Just kick back and let someone else do the fighing for you because you do not believe in war. Typical....
Palindromedary - Just remember it was not the demonstrators in the street. It was the cost of the war in dollars that ended the War! The demonstrators were no different than the Wall St. marchers, they were laughed at by Wall St. and Washington laughed at the peace marchers, especially Nixon. They simply used the police to derail both movements. The troops in Vietnam had nothing to do with the political decision to slowly withdraw our troops and turn the war over to the South, it was the cost. Military personnel follow orders from the Commander in Chief in the White House they do not give orders to Washington. We did not try to win the hearts and minds of the people after 68 and the Tet offensive, which resulted in the destruction of the V.C. and the North military presence in the South. Where did you get your information, from old movies of left wingers who wanted to sell movies or Oliver Stone movies! Kill them all and let god sort them out, came from a movie about Vietnam and was used to excite the movie audience. Everything you have quoted came from a movie or a left wing documentary; try something with some actual history and evidence to back up your words. The idea that we lost the war is incorrect, when we actually removed 99.9% of our troops (before the Russian tanks rolled up to the gates of our embassy) and turned the war over to the South Vietnamese military. Just like we did in Iraq and no one has said we lost the war in Iraq. The commanders in charge actually waited until all Americans were airlifted from the Embassy, then their tanks rolled in. They did not want the U.S. to use air power from the aircraft carriers just outside of the boundaries of Vietnam’s sovereignty. The only time the Americans left Vietnam in a hurry was when the South Vietnamese soldiers gave up in masses. The war would have been over in 6 months if we would have bombed the ports that were full of Russian and Chinese weapons. Johnson was afraid to bomb the ports in case we were to hit Russians and Chinese personnel, but that ended in 72-73 and we saw the drop off of missiles, tanks and other tools of war. Also the use of drugs by the soldiers was a reflection of the times when the majority of young men and women were experimenting with drugs, not because they could not cope with the war. I know firsthand about why the troops used pot during their tour. And when 73 came around the last thing America was concerned about was winning the hearts of the people because we had already destroyed the V.C. which were civilians fighting for the North while being from the South of Vietnam. It is always the bleeding heart liberals that incorrectly claim we lost the war. What the politicians refer to not wanting another Vietnam, they mean we do not want to leave as victors only to have the country defeated after we leave.
ken ware: It would obviously be futile to argue the points with someone who has been so thoroughly propagandized by the war mongers who profited on war. The war mongers trained men to think and believe in a certain way... and many, it seems to me, have not yet healed from it. I've got to say that anyone who sounds an awful lot like those people on Fox news, who also tend to defend America's atrocities and war crimes, tend to call everyone else who disagrees with them... cowards. Doesn't phase me a bit. I consider the source.
There are lots of veterans who are so greatly upset about what they had been propagandized into doing, and what they experienced, and now, perhaps, realizing that it really had nothing to do with 'defending the country' or any other lie they had been made to believe in...that they are now committing suicide. Of course, there are those who go the other way...they bury themselves deeper into the lie...defending what they have done....so that they now call everyone else who challenges the wars...cowards.
http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Manife...
Republican Congress members detest President Obama because he is doing his job. We are blessed to have such a wise and wonderful man as President of the United States. I image that president Mitt Romney would have ordered all school teachers to join the NRA and take target practice for the guns he would send to their classrooms. We are lucky to have a sensable and ethical leader in the White House, not some nut case such as Romney would believes that 47% of us are moochers. We dodged a terrible outcome when Democrats, Independents, and moderate Republicans (I know a few) voted for Barack Obama to serve a second term. If Romney had been elected the Affordable Care Act would be at the least defunded. If Romney had been elected who knows how the Supreme Court would look in four years. Yes, we have a grand leader, lets support him better than we did the first term . . . let's protect his back from these crazed REpublicans in Congress. I believe the anger and outrageous language is caused by a deep seated racism. I think these Republicans cannot stand to see a black man do good work.
Ken, I can understand why many people who served in Nam would feel as you do. It's partly thing where people who shared the same difficulty feel a bond with each other, and they may feel that people who did not share that difficulty could not possibly understand. Our military- and all militaries- goes out of its way to cultivate this attitude. And you obviously know more about what actually happened in Nam than most people.
But I would ask that you consider the possibility that at least some of the people who didn't go to Nam might not be cowards. In fact, some of them might be very brave people. I'm not speaking of draft dodgers like Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney, and other republicans who supported the idea of YOU going to Nam, but who weaseled out of going there themselves. I am speaking about highly principled people who will not kill people, who felt that the war was started and maintained on the basis of a consistent pattern of lies that caused untold human misery on both sides. There are people whose nature is to be warriors and that is what they must do if they are to be true to themselves. And for warriors, the trick is not to find the courage to fight, but rather finding a cause worth fighting for and an effective way to fight for it. For instance, Thom fights for America. It was very moving to see the relief on his face when it was announced that Obama had won; I could see that Thom had been fighting so hard for so long, investing so much of himself in trying to help save America, and unlike Glen Beck, Thom really was worried and frightened for his country.
What I am saying does not impugn your courage or that of the people you served with. And I do not make light of what you went through there; of all the people I know who went to Nam, most came back with serious damage in one way or another, and when you have been through repeated situations where your life could end at any moment and other people's lives depend on you and you have to depend on other people to save your life too, it makes an impression on you.
Personally, I think the greatest threat to America, is not overseas but right here at home: our own government, which is pretty much controlled by liars and thieves- by people who have lots of money and power, but no courage and no character.
Thanks, Palindromedary. And your Bush-in-the-urinal story is hilarious; if I were in such a bathroom I can assure you that I would take careful aim. Why, I might even put it on YouTube...
I do the environmental stuff partly because I have to. I am chemically sensitive but I still have to shop, and I love going to bookstores, and so when no one else does anything about the chemicals in those places, I have to, or the price I pay is a splitting headache that lasts for between one and three weeks. And in all fairness, not all Whole Foods stores use paradichlorobenzene, though all of them are infected by Mackey's concupissant capitalism. (Spelling error/pun intended.)
Palindromedary - I am truly surprised you were not one of those who fled the country to avoid serving our country. Perhaps you’re just older than those who served and sat back and watched us fight while sitting on your couch watching brave men die in your place...you really have a warped left wing attitude about a war you were able to obviously avoid. The only word that comes to mind when commenting on your response is coward. And the troops in Vietnam, especially the officers and non-com's did not sit around and complain as you must have seen in your afternoon movies. Please show me where you have gotten these facts about massive drug use and suicides by our military men in Vietnam. Unlike the Iraq and Afghan War the troops only had to serve 12 months in country. So suicides were not a problem in Vietnam because troops new they were going stateside after a short tour of duty. You see something on the news about how the military personnel are committing suicide and you connect it with events in Vietnam. It seems you got all your facts from movies that exaggerated or lied for a story line. Those innocent victims you comment about were military personnel and civilians that supported the war effort against us and were bombed just like in World War II. It sounds like you saw the movie with Sheen and Brando, Apocalypse Now or Full Metal Jacket and thought it was a realistic portrayal of the war and the men who actually served our country. You can make all the comments that you would like, but you do not offer any real statistics or facts concerning the Vietnam War! I would probably be right if I assumed you are and were an armchair warrior with no actual experience of any kind when it comes to war or the military. And you are probably proud of the fact you never served, but found a way to avoid your service to our country. If we had people like you in WW2, we would be speaking Japanese today. Try actually reading history accounts of the Vietnam War before you start berating America and her Military Men and Women. If your 65 years of age and did not serve in our military, my assumptions of you are probably true. You probably supported Fonda when she visited the city of Hanoi to try to demoralize our fighting men and praise a country that had mass executions of anyone from the South or those who tried to flee the Communist Government in North Vietnam. You sound like someone who thinks the Taliban should still be running Afghanistan with Al Qaeda, so our military had no casualties. Fighting is what the military does and there is no draft, these troops all volunteered for duty by joining the military. It is difficult to even rebut your comments because you and your kind remind me of the cowards that fled to Canada, while their brothers fulfilled their obligation to America. I would respect your comments if they had even a shred of truth to them. Go watch your TV and maybe you can absorb more propaganda about America and her Military Men and Women, because up certainly know very little about the U.S. and the Vietnam War!
When I read that impeachment is being discussed because of the President's actions promting gun law reforms, first I shook my head, then I laughed out loud, and then I began to feel scared. Now I'm feeling sort of dissociated in my mind (not my feelings) trying to figure out how it is possible for funtional, rational people to see things so totally differently. Now I'm remembering about the power of money, and I'm going back to feeling cynical. That leads me to feeling scared again. Well, this could go on all nite, so I'll sign off.
DAnneMarc: I thought nearly the same thing...if he can use his Presidential powers to ban guns then why can't he raise the debt limit using his Presidential powers. Why couldn't he have made universal healthcare the law of the land rather than the givaway to health care bandits that is the current Obama Care fiasco. So, it just tells me that it is not the well being of the American people he is trying to help in banning guns...it is much deeper...more sinister. But going on over to the Republican side is just nuts. Although, it's really not much different than the Democrat side...they're both working against our best interests.
DAnneMarc: Don't drink alcohol, or smoke, or take drugs but I thought about, at the time, loading up on lots of tea. "Y'all take a listen, you'll hear the deep sound comin' down from Bobby Peru." --Wild At Heart.