Last weekend the History Channel had a special on the Vietnam War hosted by Mike Wallace. I thought about this reading the last line of DakotaRed's post about the freedom we have to have the day.
In one scene, then-leftist and antiwar activist Jane Fonda was seen sitting in the chair of an antiaircraft gun, grinning from ear to ear, and was quoted as saying she wished she could shoot down some "air pirates" (so much for her pacifism).
Think of the tortures our troops went through, not defending US freedoms in that war so much as South Vietnam's right to exist as a free country. Beaten, getting "the ropes," starved, kept in solitary confinement, goaded by their captors with the threat of keeping them there after the war, and then they got to hear Fonda calling them "liars and hypocrites" for their revelations of abuses suffered at the hands of their captors.
And contrast their return to American soil--spit on, called "baby killers" and so on (yes, the My Lai massacre didn't help their cause, I know, but recall the US helicopter gunship that landed between the villagers and US troops, prepared to fire on the troops to stop the killing) with that of our Gulf War vets. I think I'd be bitter as hell. No doubt many are.
So to those of you who fought; who died or lost friends; who went through things you'll never forget and we'll never know; I say "Thank you" for what you've done, not just in America's service, but in preserving freedom everywhere.
There are those who say that criticizing the government is un-American and unpatriotic. But this country came to be because we disagreed with the King and his tax policies ("No taxation without representation!"). Voting, letter-writing, grassroots activism, are all proper ways to show this country remains alive and vital because we exercise those rights. I have no more patience for the bomb-throwing radical than I do the simplistic "America--love it or leave it" which as was pointed out is simplistic and a lazy person's response to dissent.
Nobody wants war. But so long as there are rulers discontented with what they have and lusting for more, wars will have to be fought. Thank heaven there are people willing to fight them.