A Friend Says No to Iraq, Yes to College
I am a child of the 60s. My friend is much younger and does not remember Vietnam. He served in the Marines during peace time. He doesn't know a thing about wars that are not in defense of one's country. He can't imagine that his government would deliberately send his child to be killed for no reason other than self-interest on the part of a few so-called leaders. But I remember. I remember Vietnam as if it was yesterday.
Then, right in the middle of registration, my friend's son came to him and told him he really wanted to stay in school - that the only reason he had enlisted was because he felt as if his school expenses were a drain on his parents' budget. He asked his dad to help him get signed up with ROTC and out of having to report for Basic Training.
It took my friend almost 3 days, working day and night, to get all of the forms filled out and get them taken to the proper places for signatures and validation, but he did it. He got his child enrolled in school and then fell completely apart. As it turns out, he had never wanted his child to go to Iraq, but had made all of those mean speeches in defense of what he thought his child wanted.
Now, free from having to defend a bad point, my friend has declared that this will not happen again. His son is his only child and, as a former Marine, he will not tolerate his child being killed in battle for any reason other than in defense of his country. Since this war does not even come close to meeting that criteria, he says he will prevent his child from going into the Armed Services, if he tries it again, no matter what it takes to stop him.
Old veterans are starting to talk around the coffee pot at the local convenience store. Their assessment of this situation is not good and, now that my friend's son isn't going to Iraq, he is joining in with the other veterans. Not one is in favor of this war or of losing even one more American soldier to it. It is absolutely amazing the difference that just a few days and the safety of one's child can make in the rhetoric that comes out of the mouth of a parent.
Published by Khaki Scott
A writer for 26 years, I am finally ready to semi-retire in Yucatan. Fortunately, I am working more now than I ever did. Thanks to "old age" and experience, I am able to write about topics of my choice now a... View profile
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6 Comments
Post a CommentMarine Junkie - I hear all the time that soldiers were treated badly when they came home from Vietnam. We never did that. We were too happy to have them back alive. ...and you are wrong about the protest being against the soldiers. It was most certainly against the government - they were all but rounding our friends up on street corners and shipping them off to be killed for nothing... and lets not forget that the military deliberately turned many of them into drug addicts and sprayed the rest with only God knows what chemicals - so most of them have severe problems they will never get over or outlive. I did not dishonor the United States - ever. Nor did anyone I know. The United States has dishonored its citizens. As for God Save the United States? ... that's a whole new philosophical question these days and I am not sure anymore what the right answer should be.
I do understand all the points that have been given. My biggest concern Khaki Scott is that the protest during the Vietnam war were not mainly directed at the government. Most of it was directed at the Marines and Soldiers. They were abandoned, called every name under the son, and then left out in the cold by the so called freedom activist and demonstrators. When will the American people stop placing the blame on the fighting me and put it where it belongs. I had a friend that spent three tours in Vietnam only to come home and be tortured by the local college kids. They went to the extreme to even burn flags and throw blood on his porch. I ask you, was the war his fault? Shame on us as a nation to dishonor a person that gives his life and soul for us. God "SAVE" the United States!
The real shocker for us, as college students during Vietnam, was going to class and quite "clinically" learning our "facts" on why our soldiers were being needlessly slaughtered and why that was "ok" - There was no way we were going to watch that in silence. We boiled out into the streets, all over this country, and fought like tigers to bring our soldiers home. The people who believed our government called us traitors. Our schools threatened to expel us for demonstrating and telling what we knew. Time proved us right, but so what? That didn't bring even one of our lost friends back to life. It doesn't matter what anyone says. This kind of slaughter for ulterior motives was wrong then and its wrong now.
Amen, Khaki! I don't think that you are the sheep. It's nice to see somone making sense. My dad was in the Vietnam era, and it amazes me how ignorant people seem to be about the devastating effects that senseless massacre had not only on foreign soil, but on our own people. An entire generation was terrorized by the US government plain and simple. Ms Russell can say whatever she wants. She sounds like the bah bah bah morons that you hear on Faux News. Bah bah bah bah bah band boom how many are dead??????
Good for him!
Hello... Just because you wouldn't make a choice for yourself, it doesn't make it the wrong choice for someone else. Grow up and quite being a sheep.