I don’t understand what has changed in America that we applaud soldiers returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan when those who returned from Vietnam were jeered and called criminals.
I support our troops 100%, no matter where they are told to go. This war is not of there choosing. Vietnam wasn’t either. They go where they are told just as they have throughout history.
This war in Iraq is an illegal war based on the lies the Bush administration forced upon us seemingly overnight. Vietnam, though not technically a war but a police action, was forced on us too but it took years of gradual buildup responding to an ever increasing threat. Politicians back then were more open as to the reason we were there. Not so in Iraq.
Communists were never going to come to our shores and turn our citizenry into state-sponsored zombies working only for the state. And today, terrorist are not coming to our shores to destroy every thing we believe in.
Sure the whole atmosphere of protest during Vietnam against anything authoritarian was turning this country inside out and we were all turning against each other and therefore honoring our troops was just too far out of the question. But is the lack of protest today over what this single most undemocratic of administrations has perpetrated upon us an admission that we don’t care? Have we just thrown our hands up in resignation to the realization that we are powerless to change anything?
Patriotism back then was a dirty word uttered under the threat of being ostracized by the very people these soldiers were fighting to protect. Patriotism today is merely a tool used by right wingers to declare themselves ‘better Americans’ than anyone who voices their opinion against this war even when they support the soldiers.
What has changed over the last forty years?
Soldiers then were drafted and forced to fight, some volunteered but this nation’s citizenry turned their backs on them just the same. There was no applause, no pat on the back for a ‘job well done’. There were no large cheering crowds welcoming them home to the nation they put their lives on the line for.
Soldiers today volunteer, although the latest reports show those numbers are dwindling. Is this the reason we as a nation view them so differently? If these soldiers today were drafted and forced to go to Iraq, would they be jeered and called criminals just as they were during Vietnam?
The U.S. became the aggressor in this war. We went in uninvited, supposedly to rid the world of an evil man who was in reality no threat to the U.S. In Vietnam we answered a call to protect a friendly nation. You can decide for yourself which war was more ‘just’.
Has America grown up since Vietnam? Do we now realize we should support our brothers and sons no matter where they are sent knowing the reason could be unjust?
Supporting the troops is not an admission that we support the war. Protesting the war does not mean we are unpatriotic. We can all be patriotic and still admonish an evil, lying, manipulating president. Right wingers need to understand that doing our patriotic duty out of a sense of honor can be separate from the disdain we feel for the fool that sent us into battle.
Our brothers who fought in Vietnam should have been treated better than they were. That shame is on us at our own hands and cannot be washed away.
We can however, pay attention to what our elected officials are up to and force them to be transparent in their dealings so that we are never blindsided again and forced into another illegal war.
If we have indeed learned anything from our mistakes with Vietnam, I can only hope we will also learn from our mistakes with George W Bush.
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