thedrifter
03-07-03, 07:00 AM
03-05-2003
Hack's Target:
Pledge Allegiance to Our Troops
By David H. Hackworth
The horror of another violent war is “Blowin' in the Wind,” once again polarizing our nation and stirring up the same passions that the Vietnam War visited upon a divided country in the mid-1960s to mid-1970s.
Back then, millions of people – young and old, rich and poor – defied authority in protest, burning cities and blocking troop trains, while American soldiers confronted their fellow citizens with rifles loaded and fixed bayonets unsheathed.
During that devastating decade, millions of ordinary Americans became totally alienated from both our elected leaders and the political process, many doing their level best to turn the United States into an anarchistic banana republic. Yet even though a surprising number of the “You can't trust anyone over 30” generation are now the graying power brokers running our country and calling for regime change in Iraq, they ironically have been among the first to demonize any and all citizens opposed to the military solution, labeling them turncoats and charging them with turning their backs on our president, our flag and this republic.
Retired four-star Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni – one of my all-time heroes – was recently publicly termed “that traitor” by a top Bush aide when Zinni dared to exercise his freedom of speech by sounding off against war with Iraq.
And as was the case during the Vietnam War, those opposed to a duel in the desert are just as meanly attacking the nearest and dearest of serving defenders, as well as the soldiers themselves. Even supposedly pacifist university faculty members are aggressive toward pro-war students if they suggest “rallying around the flag.” An Army ROTC college student says one of his professors went so far as to threaten to flunk him. “Stop spouting your pro-Iraqi War diatribe in my classroom,” he was warned.
In 1964, before U.S. conventional troops were deployed to Vietnam, my professors laid the same message on me when I was vocal in my belief that LBJ was right regarding the Vietnam War. Both the president and I turned out to be dead wrong, but so were my professors' threats and the actions of the dissenters on both sides of the war-and-peace issue, then and now.
So once again, both the hawks and the doves are all too frequently accelerating the debate from jeering and name-calling to full-on close combat, actually clashing on the streets in bloody conflict – even though a major lesson learned from the Vietnam War was that our nation couldn't win without the full support of its people.
Another hard lesson we obviously didn't learn well enough was not to attack our warriors or their families. Sure, it's the democratic way to openly agree or disagree, but it shouldn't be the American way to vent on the defenders of our land or their loved ones. Just as the war in Vietnam wasn't of the troops’ making, neither is the war with Iraq.
Our soldiers enforce policy, they don't make it. Attacking all-volunteer troopers who joined up to defend America won't resolve whether war with Iraq is moral or immoral, but as with Vietnam, it surely will reduce their fighting spirit and throw them off their life-or-death game.
In the ‘60s it was “Hell, no, we won't go!” Now it's “Hey, hey, ho, ho, we're not fighting for Texaco.”
Back then, our heroes were routinely shamed en route home from the battlefield, spit upon and called “baby killers” for answering their country's call. Those stalwart fighters, caught up in a wrongheaded conflict where they fought with great guts, still haven't fully recovered from the emotional scars inflicted upon them by unthinking citizens who blamed them for our duly-elected politicians’ bad war. Nor have they yet to be truly welcomed home or thanked and honored for their noble service “on behalf of a grateful nation.”
So if you agree with the president, let him and his gang know you're right there behind them. And if you disagree with the war, by all means lean on your politicians and try to make democracy work.
But lay off the troops, their kids and their families.
Hawk, dove or somewhere in between, we must learn from the Vietnam experience to always support the members of our armed forces and their families “all the way.”
Http://www.hackworth.com is the address of David Hackworth's home page. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831. Look for his new book, “Steel My Soldiers' Hearts,” (Rugged Land LLC, New York City).
© 2003 David H. Hackworth
Sempers,
Roger
Hack's Target:
Pledge Allegiance to Our Troops
By David H. Hackworth
The horror of another violent war is “Blowin' in the Wind,” once again polarizing our nation and stirring up the same passions that the Vietnam War visited upon a divided country in the mid-1960s to mid-1970s.
Back then, millions of people – young and old, rich and poor – defied authority in protest, burning cities and blocking troop trains, while American soldiers confronted their fellow citizens with rifles loaded and fixed bayonets unsheathed.
During that devastating decade, millions of ordinary Americans became totally alienated from both our elected leaders and the political process, many doing their level best to turn the United States into an anarchistic banana republic. Yet even though a surprising number of the “You can't trust anyone over 30” generation are now the graying power brokers running our country and calling for regime change in Iraq, they ironically have been among the first to demonize any and all citizens opposed to the military solution, labeling them turncoats and charging them with turning their backs on our president, our flag and this republic.
Retired four-star Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni – one of my all-time heroes – was recently publicly termed “that traitor” by a top Bush aide when Zinni dared to exercise his freedom of speech by sounding off against war with Iraq.
And as was the case during the Vietnam War, those opposed to a duel in the desert are just as meanly attacking the nearest and dearest of serving defenders, as well as the soldiers themselves. Even supposedly pacifist university faculty members are aggressive toward pro-war students if they suggest “rallying around the flag.” An Army ROTC college student says one of his professors went so far as to threaten to flunk him. “Stop spouting your pro-Iraqi War diatribe in my classroom,” he was warned.
In 1964, before U.S. conventional troops were deployed to Vietnam, my professors laid the same message on me when I was vocal in my belief that LBJ was right regarding the Vietnam War. Both the president and I turned out to be dead wrong, but so were my professors' threats and the actions of the dissenters on both sides of the war-and-peace issue, then and now.
So once again, both the hawks and the doves are all too frequently accelerating the debate from jeering and name-calling to full-on close combat, actually clashing on the streets in bloody conflict – even though a major lesson learned from the Vietnam War was that our nation couldn't win without the full support of its people.
Another hard lesson we obviously didn't learn well enough was not to attack our warriors or their families. Sure, it's the democratic way to openly agree or disagree, but it shouldn't be the American way to vent on the defenders of our land or their loved ones. Just as the war in Vietnam wasn't of the troops’ making, neither is the war with Iraq.
Our soldiers enforce policy, they don't make it. Attacking all-volunteer troopers who joined up to defend America won't resolve whether war with Iraq is moral or immoral, but as with Vietnam, it surely will reduce their fighting spirit and throw them off their life-or-death game.
In the ‘60s it was “Hell, no, we won't go!” Now it's “Hey, hey, ho, ho, we're not fighting for Texaco.”
Back then, our heroes were routinely shamed en route home from the battlefield, spit upon and called “baby killers” for answering their country's call. Those stalwart fighters, caught up in a wrongheaded conflict where they fought with great guts, still haven't fully recovered from the emotional scars inflicted upon them by unthinking citizens who blamed them for our duly-elected politicians’ bad war. Nor have they yet to be truly welcomed home or thanked and honored for their noble service “on behalf of a grateful nation.”
So if you agree with the president, let him and his gang know you're right there behind them. And if you disagree with the war, by all means lean on your politicians and try to make democracy work.
But lay off the troops, their kids and their families.
Hawk, dove or somewhere in between, we must learn from the Vietnam experience to always support the members of our armed forces and their families “all the way.”
Http://www.hackworth.com is the address of David Hackworth's home page. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831. Look for his new book, “Steel My Soldiers' Hearts,” (Rugged Land LLC, New York City).
© 2003 David H. Hackworth
Sempers,
Roger