The Vietnam war ends. 39 year anniversary. I don't think so. In a real sense, it isn't over. On PBS, Jeffrey Brown interviewed the author of
The Things They Carried. It wasn't very satisfactory to me. No
comments would have been comforting, however. I don't know exactly
why. Tim O'Brian gave some innocuous answers about war. This isn't
criticism of him although it sounds like it. He actually is going
around talking to kids in schools about war, his book. It sounds like
some good responses from the kids.
The sour grapes are mostly my fault. I want someone to raise hell, to
say what war is all about. How governments make stupid decisions and
then try to justify them. It is not that war in Afghanistan or Iraq is
not a noble effort at least in theory but it is stupid. And, without
going into a rant, let us lament the fact that we lost 58,000 plus
Americans in Vietnam and accomplished nothing but the scars we still
live with. Let me hear the argument that we have accomplished
something in Iraq. There's almost as much chaos as when we invaded.
American deaths are way down as we have moved out of the cities but
with great regularity, thr people are being killed. They are
struggling with the government after no clear cut winner in the recent
election. I'm still skeptical that we'll be able to get out clean. In
Afjghanistan, we are operating with the best strategy to be successful
I think. The only caveat: in Afghanistan 20 years for it to possibly
work. No way. So, this ex soldier ain't celebrating the anniversary of
the ending of the Vietnam war.
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