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The Crowe's Nest |
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Being a veteran, I can’t help but feel a certain remorse every year on Veterans Day because I know that all those who have died in combat since World War II died for nothing. I know that they were wounded for nothing and that they have suffered for nothing. Except for World War II, there has not been a single American soldier that died defending our liberties. Not one has been wounded in defense of our country. Not one has suffered in order that we might live free. It does a terrible disservice to our veterans, both living and dead and those yet to die and yet to be wounded and yet to kill, for us to keep serving up this lie that they died defending our liberties. I served as a helicopter crew chief with B Troop, 7/17th Air Cavalry in the Central Highlands of Vietnam from October of 1967 through October of 1968. Three of the four helicopters that were assigned to me during that time were shot down, killing everybody on board. It was just my luck that on each of those days I was not scheduled to fly. I lived to tell the tale. And I’ll keep telling it and speaking it and braving it for those who can’t tell it and speak it due to being dead. Anyone who says we could have won the Vietnam War if they had let us, just doesn’t get it. We should have never gone to Vietnam. It had nothing to do with our liberties or freedoms. It was none of our business. It was the business of the Vietnamese people who were involved in a Civil War between the North and the South. We lost the Vietnam War because we had no business being there. The Vietnamese people won the war because it was their homeland. There is no longer a North Vietnam and a South Vietnam. It is just one Vietnam now and it is a nation that is a good citizen in the neighborhood and a good friend to us. Those who say that we could have won it if they had let us are just ignorant and unmindful of the most important fact of all, which is that we had no business being there. It wasn’t to defend our liberties. It was to pacify the ego and carry out the policy of the American president and his main thinkers. The same thing is true about the Korean War. Not a single American soldier was killed or wounded in that war defending our liberties. They were there to pacify the ego and carry out the policy of the American president and his main thinkers. That has been the case in all of our military actions and wars since. Our soldiers are not used to defend our liberties. They are just used. They are used to pacify the ego and carry out the policy of the American president and his main thinkers. The American president and his main thinkers are the ones most responsible for sending our soldiers off to kill or be killed. They say it is to defend our liberties and our way of life, but that is not the truth. They kill and die to pacify the ego and carry out the policy of the American president and his main thinkers. One would think that it would be such an easy and obvious thing to comprehend and understand that we allow our presidents to use our soldiers to pacify their egos and carry out their policies which have nothing to do with defending our liberties, but it is not easy for the American people to see this. It’s astonishing that our scholars and educators and teachers and others who help in the molding of minds continue to spread that misconception to our children and the public at large, that every time a soldier dies he dies in defense of our liberties and way of life. It’s not that we shouldn’t honor our veterans. Of course we should. But we should honor them with the truth. They sacrifice their lives and take the bullets and do the killing and endure the suffering in order to pacify the ego of the American president and to carry out his policies. Not since World War II, has it had anything to do with defending our liberties and way of life. We owe it to our veterans to put a stop to this misuse of their lives. If we truly honored our soldiers we would put a stop to our American presidents using them up as if they were wooden soldiers or pawns in a chess game. It may be impossible to reverse this madness because it has become so deeply rooted in the American way of life over these past 60 years or so. We have become with war the way we are at football, baseball and other sporting events. Once the game is on, we root and scream for the home team and demand victory regardless of the cost, how long it takes to win or the reason for going to war or being at war. All we know is that we could win this thing if they would just let us. It’s Vietnam over and over again. Of course, while the American president and his main thinkers are the direct cause and ring leaders of our wars, they are helped by the Congress that has grown weaker and weaker over the past 60 years to the point that they serve pretty much as “yes men” and “yes women” to the president’s ego and the thinking of his main thinkers. As for the American people themselves, it is from out of their midst that the American president is hatched and all the members of Congress. If the president and the Congress represent the will of the American people, what should we expect from the American people? Let me clarify that. If the American people are just as ignorant and just as morally stupid as the president and the Congress which comes out of the belly of the American people, why should we expect any help from the American people? The truth is that we shouldn’t expect any help. Certainly not much help and not much help anytime soon. We should never forget that it is the American people themselves that push this two-piston engine, or two-party system that we call American Democracy. This American Democracy still sees itself as God’s most favored nation that has been granted the right by God to rule over the world and rid it of all evil-doers (as long as they are small nations that we can easily whip, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, and not the bigger nations like China or Russia that we cannot so easily whip). If the American people had really learned anything of worthwhile significance over the past six years, the American president wouldn’t have the gall to keep connecting Iraq to 9/11 and claiming that we’re fighting them there so we won’t have to fight them here. If the American people had really learned anything by now, you wouldn’t have so many presidential candidates, both Republican and Democrat, talking so tough about Iran and how we may have to attack them next and take out their government in order to defend our liberties and way of life. It’s almost laughable that they are lining up the idea the same way the American president lined up the idea of attacking Iraq. They begin by insisting that the Iranian leader is a madman. Then they claim he is helping the extremists kill our soldiers by furnishing them with weapons and explosives. And finally they insist that he is trying to develop a nuclear weapon. Before we can allow him to do that, we’ll have to attack Iran and take him out and help the Iranian people form a new government. We’ll have to do all that in order to protect our liberties and way of life. If we are ever going to give our soldiers the true honor they deserve, we need to start making sure that when we do send them off to fight and die, that it is truly to protect our liberties and way of life, and not to pacify the ego of the American president, his main thinkers, his “yes men” and “yes women” in Congress and the great, grazing herd of Americans too busy chewing their cud to know or care much about what’s going on. We’re not there yet. And as incredible as it may sound, we’re not even close. We still don’t accept the idea that International Law applies to us. It may apply to everybody else, but it doesn’t apply to us. Because God told us so, I guess. So, we’re going to keep wasting the lives of our soldiers and we’re going to keep claiming that they died for our liberties and way of life; and our young people and our old and all those in between are going to keep eating that up as if it were good food and fit to eat. The only possible hope that I see, and it is so far off in the foggy distance that I can hardly even see it, is that 50 percent of American voters that have not been voting in our national elections over the past 60 years or so. Who are they and what are they waiting for? I don’t know who they are, but I see hope in the fact that they are there, in the dark, waiting like a reserve force. As for what they are waiting for, I have a sinking suspicion that they are simply waiting for a reason to vote and they’re going to be waiting for a long time.
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