When Tears Well Up, From Deep Inside

I have, placed all over in my small studio apartment, here in my retirement days in the sun, quite a number of small American flags, mementos of donations to various war-focused causes, plus a copy of the iconic photo of the raising of the American flag on a hilltop at Iwo Jima, graphic symbol of Victory in the Pacific Theater of World War Two, for those of you too young, or brainwashed, to know about.  I live in honor of those brave, and sometimes deluded, young men and some women who have given their all for ‘this flag’ - to say, for what it represents, at its best.  And have been touched by various comments by ‘those who served’ over the years.  But nothing has struck me profoundly quite as much as the quote that I have just read in a letter from the President of the Board of Directors of The National Vietnam War Museum.  It is from an American soldier who was killed in Vietnam just a day after his 19th birthday, in a letter that he wrote to his parents back when he was 17 and they wouldn’t give their permission for him to enlist, to go fight in Vietnam, and he ran away from home over the matter.  His letter to them at that time, in explanation for his action, read in part:

“I still believe that individual freedom is the most important thing in the world.  And I am willing to die defending that idea.”    

Excuse me a moment.

The year of his death was 1966.  That war dragged on - was drug out - until 1975, when there was the infamous lineup of people, American personnel and South Vietnamese citizenry, seen on our TV screens escaping from a Saigon rooftop via helicopter, as North Vietnamese tanks began rolling through the streets of the outskirts of the city.  (I don’t have that picture.  Either of them.)

Some thoughts.

1. ‘Vietnam’ was, as these things go, an honorable enterprise.  A UN treaty that the U.S. - as a good member of the world’s community of nations - was a party to, called the SouthEast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO), provided for the signees to come to the aid of each other, in an attempt to counter Communist aggression in the world - and, hopefully, to deter it from happening in the first place, because of the presence of such treaty agreements (and like NATO over in Europe).     

2. Vietnam became a meat grinder.  As this Board of Directors president (who is a Vietnam Vet himself) said, in his letter, in explaining why the creation of such a Museum (“to honor them for their service and sacrifice.  They have every reason to be proud of their service”):  “After all, they did not lose the war.  The politicians did.” (Emphases in original)

   And more specifically: the Deep State.  Whom President Reagan failed to drain from the swamp in Washington, D.C. in the aftermath of that war.  And left it to a later generation to do the job.

   Ours.*

3. The bottom line of that affair: It was an unfair outcome.

     a) I remember reading a book during that time authored by a pilot involved in that fiasco, who railed in it against their orders from higher up, to ‘pull their punches’ - not to go after really meaty targets.  He didn’t say as much in his book, but the accusation held: The fix was in.

     b) Antony Sutton, in one or other of his excellently researched books, told how the West, and particularly the U.S., bankrolled the USSR, giving it both financial and military aid; the latter of which the USSR then turned around and sent to the North Vietnamese. 

     c) ‘Baby killers.’   

         Yes, some.  A frustrated few, with ‘the enemy’ hiding amongst the villagers.  But it was unfair to splash all our Vietnam Vets with the same brush.  

They served a noble ideal.

They deserve some recompense from The People of this country.

As for those traitors amongst us………

I will reserve judgment.

Let me, rather, close out this memorandum on a positive note.  And say:

Thank you, PFC Denton ’Mogie’ Crocker, for your service to this nation, and to the cause for which it stands, in its highest moments.

I salute you, in honor, and memoriam.    

—

* Although he left us an excellent quote of his own, to guide by (which this letter quoted as well):

   “After all that has happened in that unhappy part of the world, who can doubt that the cause for which our men fought was just?”  

   The Marxists can.  Who were for the other side in that war.

   And who are amongst us to this day.

   And were tasting victory.  Until The Donald came along.

   But to continue.