I don't even begin to have all the answers ... like so many who seem to think they do. Almost all I've heard since even before I was drafted and sent to Viet Nam is "illegal war" and "baby killers" and "involuntary servitude" and "give peace a chance" and so on and so forth. Even now, like then, it's overwhelming to wade through the "global perspective" and examine all the righteous and simplified summations of that time and that war. It was difficult enough to sort through my OWN situation and make a decision that would be consistent with my principles, such as they were, and one that I could live with or die for. I could have gone just a few short miles and lived in Canada. The "hardship" would have been that I could only see friends or family if they bothered to drive a few miles to visit me. (Of course there was the language barrier, too.) What then? Well, some other guy from my town would have been drafted -- they had quotas, you know -- and then he'd have to go in my place.

I had to recognize that I lived in a democracy. I was taught that living in a democracy was a social contract. We argue, we vote, and we support the decision of the majority. We elect public servants in which we invest a trust -- and have ways of removing them when they violate that trust. Thus, military service was a service to the nation (PEOPLE!) ... not service to a dictator or monarch. Yes, I understood civil disobedience. I read Thoreau and studied Gandhi and watched Dr. King. All of this I knew.

I couldn't, in honesty, say I was a conscientious objector. I wasn't and I'm not. I'm old enough to just barely remember WW2. I remember the Korean War, too. Nope. That wouldn't do. At the same time, I knew that there were South Vietnamese people who WERE fighting and dying for what THEY viewed as "freedom" and political self-determination. Surely not all of them. Surely there were LOTS of reasons on all sides. I'd heard all the arguments ... let THEM deal with THEIR OWN problems and leave THEM alone. Yup. Forget the SEATO pact and mutual defense treaties and the same "issues" that sent the U.S. into Korea -- "issues" that have tens of thousands of us there to this day. After all, THEY were yellow people, right? Yes ... I heard all of that.

No, I don't have the answers. What I do know is that one of the most ridiculous phrases I've heard repeatedly in the last 40 years is: "the reason we were in Viet Nam." It's just fucking nonsense -- hyper-simplistic and superficial self-serving nonsense. Hell, just among the 2.7 million guys who SERVED in the military in Viet Nam there had to be 2.7 million unique "reasons"!

So, let me describe what little I did learn.

I remember the day of February 24, 1969 ... after the night we were attacked by an augmented battalion of NVA and all hell broke loose. (I find out later that there were at least four Medals of Honor awarded in that 24-hour+ period, one of which was awarded for what I saw take place right over my head.) After I was "relieved," I remember going over to AT&T Long Lines to make a (ET?) call home. It was near LBJ (Long Binh Jail) and the POW compound. There were a lot of us waiting in line to make a call. Lunch time came. They suspended the calls and those of us in line went to get something to eat. (We knew our place in line.) I went with the guy next to me who was stationed at the medical unit there. We walked into one of the facilities and there were two captured NVA soldiers being treated - and interrogated. They couldn't have been older than 16. They had multiple oozing wounds. Claymore or other shrapanel wounds. They also had C-ration can openers on chains around their necks. They were told -- before embarking on a many-month-long journey along the Ho Chi Minh Trail -- that they would be taking over an American post in the south ... that there was food there and that it was guarded by "WACs and clerks who went to sleep around 1am." They were told it was a "mop-up" operation. Easy. It had to be because that was the ONLY way they'd get something to eat. After all, there's only so much they could carry and limits on what'd be available.

That experience -- seeing them and knowing that I might have been the cause of their wounds (or worse) and realizing what they were told -- stayed with me. I had a very strange feeling of kinship with them ... and couldn't even label it as such at the time.

I remember the Vietnamese that worked on post ... in the offices, in the PX, in the barber shop, cleaning the hooches, burning the shit, and raking out the ditches. I remember Thuy and Nam, two of the women who cleaned our hooch and shined our boots and made our beds. I remember Nam bringing me wet washcloths that day I ran a temperature and stayed in bed. I remember Thuy laughing trying to teach me how to play their version of Oh-Wah-Ree even though she spoke no English and I spoke no Vietnamese. I remember knowing that they may have been VC and trying to kill me at night with rocket or mortar fire. But I also knew it wasn't personal. Just like it wouldn't be "personal" if I found myself shooting at them. It's called "war."

The funny thing is ... I served alongside guys who I'd die for, trying to stay alive. I served with Vietnamese people who I knew I'd might die for. THAT didn't bother me.

What bothered me was coming home and realizing that I WOULDN'T want to die for some of those who treated me like a leper -- a wife who'd found a lover or a family that didn't bother hanging a star in the window like they did for my father and my uncles in WW2 and the Korean War ... and who NEVER wanted to listen to anything I went through in Viet Nam. Why is that? I can only say it seems to be a waste to be willing to die for ANYONE who's not willing to die for ANYTHING themselves. A total waste. After all ... the Vietnamese WERE dying for their war. The other guys I was with WERE dying. Hell, Levitow got the Medal of Honor covering my sorry butt!!!

How many people who were oh-so-dedicated to ending the war were willing to die for THAT cause?? (No ... it was the DRAFT they wanted ended most, not the war.)

I've said before on DU that I think it's a tragedy that so few of us hold ANYTHING so dear that we'd die for it. I'd gladly risk my life if there were people willing to storm the Supreme Court back in December 2000. I'd gladly give my life to ensure that Bush and Cheney were brought to justice -- if there were ENOUGH of my "countrymen" who cared enough about having a nation that was self-governing to die for it.

Cynicism seems to reign high ... just below self-serving posturing about "illegal wars."

I have not seen a single person risk their life to ensure that what they CLAIM was (or is) an "illegal war" was actually prosecuted and the law breakers brought to justice in a court of law.

Just WHERE is the commitment? We had over 58,000 guys die serving in the military of a nation that wasn't willing to risk their OWN lives for THEM.

What a fucking waste.

We're not a "nation" ... we're a clusterfuck. We aren't interested in democracy, socialism, or even justice ... not enough to die for it. No .. we're only interested in climbing on a message board and asking a veteran how many people he killed!!! Just who the FUCK should ever stand alongside an asshole like that in any kind of solidarity??? What kind of idiot would defend a nation of that kind of asshole?

I guess I haven't learned a thing, really.

I'm amazed that others think they have the answers.

Idiots.



In many ways, I miss the Vietnamese. Even the VC. They were worth opposing .. or fighting for. Because they had skin in the game. They had something they'd DIE FOR. Not like my "countrymen" ... who're more than willing to let the kids next door or on the other side of the tracks go and die for oil ... as long as the price of gas didn't go up. (And then some posturing FUCK insults and demeans a Viet Nam veteran -- a posturing ass who wouldn't risk a hang nail on his keyboard for something other than himself.)

Call me silly ... or Quixotic ... but I'd gladly die for a REAL social democracy -- for people who REALLY believed in self-governance -- for people who believed we must share the burdens together (even of our misguided follies) or waste away and die separately.