I am now 77 years of age. We of my age group, give or take a few years, fought our war some 45-55 years ago. We fought our war in Vietnam (North and South), Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia. They called it the "Vietnam War" but it was much more than that. We didn't talk much about our war until recently when "Thank you for your service" became popular. Even now we don't speak of it much. When our war became unpopular, many American citizens saw us as more enemy and aggressor than they did the real enemies and aggressors. Many of our at-home enemies are still with us and we remain sensitive to the enmity they displayed. But we did fight and although we weren't and aren't yet sure why we fought, for the most part we did so with dedication and bravery. Dedication to our comrades and our units and yes, even to the country we felt forsook us. And we fought bravely, some innately so, some for medals, some for parents, relatives and friends back home, and all for our buddies who we could never let down. When we talk among ourselves we speak mostly of what we did not fight for. In the following excerpt, read "United States" instead of "Britain" and see how closely it fits.
"They did not fight for a Britain which would be dishonestly railroaded into Europe against the people’s will; they did not fight for a Britain where successive governments, by their weakness and folly, would encourage crime and violence on an unprecedented scale; they did not fight for a Britain where thugs and psychopaths could murder and maim and torture and never have a finger laid on them for it; they did not fight for a Britain whose leaders would be too cowardly to declare war on terrorism; they did not fight for a Britain whose Parliament would, time and again, betray its trust by legislating against the wishes of the country; they did not fight for a Britain where children could be snatched from their homes and parents by night on nothing more than the good old Inquisition principle of secret information; they did not fight for a Britain whose Churches and schools would be undermined by fashionable reformers; they did not fight for a Britain where free choice could be anathematised as “discriminisation”; they did not fight for a Britain where to hold by truths and values which have been thought good and worthy for a thousand years would be to run the risk of being called “fascist” –that, really, is the greatest and most pitiful irony of all. No, it is not what they fought for –but being realists they accept what they cannot alter, and reserve their protests for the noise pollution of modern music in their pubs."
Quartered Safe Out Here: A Harrowing Tale of World War II by George MacDonald Fraser copyright 2007, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
No comments:
Post a Comment