anonymous

"Anonymous" recently posted this response to my post "the myth of veterans day". My first reaction was a bit of reminiscence. I remember when I used to have an attitude like this. And when I used to be too afraid, in general, to attach my name to such comments. My response follows anonymous' comments.

Anonymous said...

You are a really young, naive child. You haven't a clue what the entire world is all about. If you ever get a chance to visit any foreign country and see what life is like there because they have allowed mad, evil men to infiltrate their country, then you will see what it would be like if any of them enter this country. It is not pretty. The fact that you can say what you want is unbelievable and precious. It is a shame you don't know what you are talking about. Yes, some things you say are true. It can be about the wrong reasons. Sometimes it is about being "King of the Hill". Wars have been waged throughout history and no one, absolutely no one likes them really. But, pay close attention to the world around you right now and watch the slow move towards stopping our military. The insidious internet which perpetuates that what we do and who we are is bad. When peace looks good, you should know that somewhere in the world some crazed idiot is going to try to change all that and we start all over again. Freedom to any one country will come at some cost. That is not something that the USA alone is responsible for. We are not the enemy. Innocents always die. People die. I will die, you will die. How we die is not always up to us and yet, how we live is. Honor veterans because they are doing what they are because they believe it will serve a greater purpose. Freedom and peace for all. We want the whole world to live in the same kind of grandiose world we live in here in this country. Everyone in this world deserves a chance to prosper and educate themselves. When some buttwipe wants to take that away from them and they say to us: "Help us." are you asking us to say "No, we can't because some sniveling kids who don't know what they are talking about don't want us to help you?" And there is not one country in this whole world who has not asked us to help them in some form or another. You just don't get to hear all that. But I have. I served. I'm a female VietNam veteran who will fight to the death that my grandchildren remain free and can visit their friends in foreign countries without fear of terrorism. Myth of veterans day....why don't you grow up? I feel really bad for your dad. He is a casualty of war and still living. How old are you? Did you not study history in school? Do you not understand the wars fought throughout mankind's existence?

You are being self-centered and self-serving by making this all about us in the here and now. What about your children and grandchildren? It is not a pretty sight to see what goes on in those other countries. You are being fed selective information to serve one purpose. To stop the US from being anywhere to stop the madness of leaders forcing their own people into what you claim is now our fault. Why don't you take a closer look and do a bit more research into what you believe is a myth. Go deeper then your own home and own experiences and what you read on blogs. This is not fun, it is not games, it is not just about Americans wanting what spoiled Americans want. It is about human rights for all and to stop what you don't want to see, what none of us want to see. But we don't need to free them and bring them here. That is not what Lady Liberty is all about, you know. She is about providing the means in which we can be free to "teach a man to fish so he can eat for the rest of his life". Not to give a man a fish for one meal but to be able to provide for his whole family for the rest of his life. We are out there to help those countries who are oppressed by madmen to learn and develop their own capabilities and join us in freedom in their own countries. To be honest, when I first read your words I believed you were of the Talaban and spreading discontent to break up a great country. Strange should it be that you are who you say you are. Here is a word I would like you to add to your vocabulary when it comes to your father, your homeland and your government (despite the fact that they are not perfect) LOYALTY
Give it a try, you might like it.

Grow up, puppy.

Anonymous,

It sounds like remembering Vietnam, and perhaps especially the way you as a vet were treated when you returned, is still pretty painful. I'm sorry you had to go through that.

some responses to some of your questions comments:

I have had the chance to see, in a foreign country, what evil men being in power can do to a people. I hung out in Charles Taylor's Liberia with a bunch of people who were so completely terrified that if you so much as mentioned anything remotely related to the government, politics, Charles Taylor, they would emotionally and even physically freeze up and refuse to continue the conversation.

I think it's pretty freaking awesome that Charles Taylor will go on trial for war crimes before the UN in about 5 weeks, and, as it turned out, the U.S. didn't have to invade or kill any civilians in order to make this happen. The U.S. military wasn't required at all to help accomplish Liberia's current astounding turnaround. Of course Liberia only has diamonds, not oil (unlike SE Asia and the Middle East).

You seem to be saying it's enough to believe one is serving a good purpose, no matter what the objective reality may be. Did I understand that correctly?

Am I correct in understanding that you think someone in Iraq *asked* us to come "help"? Can you elaborate a bit on that? should just anyone get to ask us to come help? Or does it have to be a majority? Who was it that asked us to "help" in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Colombia in the 1980's?

Are you of the opinion that we actually *did* "help" in Vietnam? do you envision a worse outcome for the nation of Vietnam had the U.S. never gotten involved? Can you describe that?

Same question re: Laos. who asked us to "help" there by dropping more ordnance than was dropped on all of Europe during world war 2? And how did doing so make Laos a better place in any way? I'm not asking snidely. I'm honestly wondering if you have answers to these questions. If not, must we still honor the vets who were part of the U.S. military machine that destroyed these nations, because they "believed it was for a greater good"? Doesn't such honor strongly lead to further such destruction?

You asked how old I am. I'm 33.

regarding loyalty. You seem to be commending loyalty to a nation. The underlying implication is that the nation can never go bad. Please correct me if I'm wrong. But it seems to me that real love for one's nation requires one to speak out against that nation when one sees that nation doing evil. I mean it seems to me that one of the Nazis' underlying philosophies was a false loyalty to Germany. Real loyalty to Germany would have required thinking people to realize that the evil path the nation was going down would only lead to destruction and heartache for both the nation and many others, and to call the nation away from that path, in terms strong enough to counter the Nazis' call to loyalty.

BICBW