Home of Today's Common Sense

Submitted 5/12/2004 Published Brwonsville Herald
I just read the heart tearing article in the Herald of May 12, entitled “Veteran’s Troubles stir up memories”. That is perhaps the best articulated portrayal of the situation I have ever heard about outside of some other Vets venting in private. The description of being branded as some kind of monsters when we returned and; because “unless you experienced the terror, you could not begin to understand”, most suffered in silence. I still have friends, I served with, that still after 30 years, live the war every night when they try to sleep or drown it with alcohol or other substances. The society of the day would not let them be the heroes they were. Now society pays. So many of the warriors in uniforms and the shadow warriors abandoned during the President Carter period, did not return – they worked as mercenaries for a while and those that survive, live in enclaves in Central America, Thailand, the Philippines etc. They didn’t do this to themselves; a country that wants to quit when the going gets tough has done this to them.

In history, war was something of an honorable thing. There were rules, everybody stood up in a line and everybody shot at each other until one side gave up or perished. The Americans ended that with guerrilla warfare in the revolution and we won. We violated the rules of war at the time. Then came the World Wars and we became part of the in-crowd following the rules of War which became codified in the Geneva Convention. Wars for Americans ended in 1945 because the understanding changed. Folks think of wars in the way of enforcing the law. You must consider what people feel and think; follow the rules; treat the enemy according to our rules. The president has not requested nor has Congress declared War since 1945. The only success we have had is with Grenada because it was over before anyone heard about it.
The conflict with Korea still goes on and continues to fester and get worse because there has been no resolution – the War has only been put on hold.
In Vietnam there was no resolution either. However, the perception of communist threat that caused President Kennedy to start the conflict has diminished because of the failure of communism, not because of a battlefield solution. In this case there was some measure of success! Sufficient time for other resolutions to take place was gained; but at what a cost. Why was the cost so high? – Americans abandoned the troops in the field! Many of us were under the impression that the North was going to fall in the late 1960’s. Then the war protests started growing which encouraged the enemy and renewed their resolve. We witnessed an enormous resurgence of fighting and our comrades dying. The enemy was able to find more supporters because it was correctly perceived that America was defeated at home. Our troops were abandoned in the field and so many died as a result. They are still being abandoned here at home as no one can understand the horrors they face alone in their minds.
What concerns me even more is that it appears that we are on the edge of abandoning our troops in the field again. The protests are growing! The enemy is becoming encouraged and gaining supporters. Will we have the courage win or will we give up and wait for them to again attack us here in our homeland. The label describing which bunch of terrorists means little; the action we are involved in is survival.