The closer the number of Americans killed in Iraq has gotten to that number, the more the lyrics to the song from Hair have been going through my head – Three-Five-Zero-Zero.
There is some controversy about what those numbers stand for in the iconic anti-Vietnam War musical. Some say it is the number of Americans who died per week, or month, at the height of the war. Others say it is the number of the first American combat troops sent into Vietnam in 1965, marking the beginning of the escalation of our involvement.
There is no controversy about what those numbers mean this time. It is the number of young, and not so young, Americans who have lost their lives to this latest military folly – the Iraq War. And even as you read this, the counting continues. Ten over the weekend, the bloodiest month ...
There are so many similarities between that war and this. Both were born on lies and were fed on lies, with a crazy idelogical belief as their foundation.
For Vietnam, it was the "Domino Theory"– we had to stop communism "over there" or else all the countries between Vietnam and the US would fall.
Now we must "fight them over there" so they don’t "follow us over here."
How many years will we be there? Long enough that Three-Five-Zero-Zero becomes a small number? ("Hey, remember way back in the old days, we only lost 100 a month?") Long enough for a grim memorial to be placed in the ground, recording the names of tens of thousands?
I watch the number of dead nudge up...and hear the words to the song ---
Three-Five-Zero-Zero.
Three-Five-Zero-Zero
Artist: Hair Soundtrack
Album: Hair Soundtrack
Ripped open by metal explosion
Caught in barbed wire
Fireball
Bullet shock
Bayonet
Electricity
Shrapnel
Throbbing meat
Electronic data processing
Black uniforms
Bare feet, carbines
Mail-order rifles
Shoot the muscles
256 Viet Cong captured
256 Viet Cong captured
Prisoners in Niggertown
It's a dirty little war
Three Five Zero Zero
Take weapons up and begin to kill
Watch the long long armies drifting home