Coming up on 36 years ago this December, early on Christmas Day morning just before I left the East Coast for good, I finally mustered the gumption to visit the (then new) Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC. I figured nobody would be there, and I was right... it was bitter cold - that kind of humid, icy cold in the low teens that slices through your sinuses and burns the lungs with each breath. As light snow flurries slowly began to fall from the dark gray sky and while the rest of the city was opening their presents, sipping their toddies and enjoying their morning festivities, I leisurely trudged toward the monument, trying to kill a few hours before my early morning flight for California took off from National.
I hadn't been entirely sure how I'd react - a part of me wanted to turn around, get back onto the Metro and wait in the warm comfort of the airport terminal, but something - something dark and heavy - drew me there anyway. I couldn't have anticipated what would happen as my shoes left footprints on the light dusting of snow-
Actually, it had taken me some time to arrive at the point where I thought I could handle it; I'd been out of the Navy for about 6 years then and I'd lost several shipmates in that particular conflict - performing tasks that by today's standards were distinctly "non-Naval" in character. I found a few of them on that wall - traced each engraved name with a finger and hoped that they were in a better place. Then as I turned around to leave, I spotted an unexpected name out of the corner of my eye- and that's when I lost it. I knew he'd enlisted right after he got out of high school in ’70 - he joined the Marines because that's what his dad did during the Korean war in '51. There always seems to be something about the genetic predisposition of people who have Corps blood in them: I dunno... but I always wondered what had happened to him. I'd imagined he'd done his tour, was discharged somewhere else, gotten married to some hot, curvy redhead, got a job and had a bunch of kids like he always used to daydream.
What made this one particularly hard to stomach was that Tommy and I had been in a band together in high school, pimping folk music for cigarette and beer money at local taverns and coffee houses. We were great friends and shared several classes - and when I needed a date for his grad night, he conned his kid sister into going with me and we wound up having a lot of fun together that evening - four friends having a blast. We were as close to being family without biological ties as people could get. But then, to see his name up there as one more casualty in that senseless, contrived "police action" and realize that someone with whom I had a personal history during an all too brief period of innocence had wound up as another sacrificial meat offering to Nixon and his brass-hat jackals in the Pentagon was the final straw.
Three hours later the L-1011’s landing gear were retracting into the wheel wells and as we gained altitude and vectored westward over northern Virginia, I felt an extreme need to take a shower and cleanse myself of the sorrow, pain and anger that was washing over me. Instead I gulped down a few gin gimlets to help deal with it until my arrival in San Francisco 5-½ hours later- thanking God for first class perks. I never looked back, and I’ve never returned since then. To this day, over 35 years later, it’s still too damned evocative. Once was quite enough.
Much has been said about patriotism for the last few decades in this country and, not surprisingly, the ones who spew the most word salad perpetuating our brand of insanity called "Homeland Security" and “foreign policy” have the greatest proportion of those who’ve never sighted in a weapon on an enemy of our country or served a single hazardous minute in her defense. Indeed the definition of the word "patriot" frequently shifts during nation-changing events, and 9-11 was (and continues to be) one of those events; however history continues to prove that wars are more frequently won and kept short by practiced strategy, wise use of resources, cunning, deception and skill instead of singular brute force. As a nation we've tolerated decades of horrifyingly expensive brute force and in the process drained our nation’s treasure, soured our nation’s image abroad and weakened our moral compass - by allowing ourselves to relinquish our liberty for security we have become both "broke" and "broken". And to this day we still can't seem to find adequate resources to properly care for our surviving veterans from the myriad conflicts our so-called “leaders” have created to fight in for no other reasons than political enmity and philosophical “purity”… or, for that matter, even fix the damned potholes in our streets. But they somehow manage to scrape together 20 billion dollars to build aircraft carriers that as weapons systems are almost obsolete before the bottle of champagne is smashed on the bow.
Given this country's track record of international policy going back to 1948: recognizing that almost all of the conflicts in which this country have fought since then have resulted in squandering our resources in the pursuit of doctrine instead of vanquishing our enemies in the pursuit of enhancing our quality of life, it should be obvious by now (altruistic though it may be) that we have no business spending another dime of our tax money or spilling another drop of our warrior’s blood on anyone outside our borders until all of our own people are educated, fed, healthy, employed and, especially, well-represented in the halls of our government. I wonder these days how it is we can spend billions of our tax dollars propping up dictatorial nations and entering into agreements with people who otherwise want to do us harm when we can scarcely claim the kind of liberty and quality of life for ourselves that we subsidize for others, effectively purchasing their “friendship” at the expense of our blood and treasure. I suspect that thousands of defense contractor lobbyists and K Street think tank lawyers peddling corporate influence in the halls of Congress wasn't what Madison, Jefferson or the rest of the architects of our government ever had in mind for this country’s governance; and anyone who casually studies recent history will recall the results of what 20 years of corporate fascism did for Italy and how it ended in Milan on April 28, 1945.
How long it will take for the people in this country to arrive at that same conclusion is anybody's guess; and the longer it’s perpetuated, the more likely the outcome here might be the same as it was at that gas station. That is why voting for humanist principles and rectitude (or pono, as we say here in Hawaii) over petty popularities and pseudo-religious dogma is so important - who we place in positions of authority ultimately defines us as a nation and a people; and right now on the world’s stage, we’re not looking like very good examples to anyone but our enemies, both the philosophical ones and the militaristic ones.
An unimaginable amount of blood has been spilled throughout the history of this country to enable every United States citizen to pontificate their opinions on thus and so. Some of it is frequently thoughtful and insightful; some of it is sophomoric and idealistic - still others are vulgar and regressive... but all of it has been bought and paid for by some citizen-soldier, airman, marine or sailor's blood. It would serve this country well to remember that fact every day instead of once or twice a year on federal holidays. But until the day arrives when a solid majority of Americans understand that trans-national corporations, the politicians who managed to get elected under false pretenses, our “justice” system that has been corrupted through neocon insurgency, the banks, the insurance companies and the lobbyists who pander for all of them are playing us all for fools to perpetuate international conflicts so that a few shadow financial emperors can amplify their already- unbelievable wealth, the very principles for which all those men and women who gave their last full measure will continue to be at grave risk and possibly have been sacrificed for nothing. Just a few decades ago that notion seemed impossible but as things stand now with each passing 24 hour news cycle, each dictatorial pronouncement passed off as an executive order, each trembling politician who refuses decisive action against the treason and malfeasance as they feign the appearance of civility and legal process, those sacrifices made by so many of our brothers and sisters take on the character of dust in the wind.
There is part of that famous speech said to have been given by Patrick Henry in the Williamsburg House of Burgesses so long ago as British warships filled with hardened redcoat troops and royal marines were headed across the Atlantic Ocean for Boston which seems to have apt parallels today:
“They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us…. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.”
Semper fi, Tommy. Your voice, your chops and your courage are not forgotten. May you, too, have not have died in vain.