HOW TO SAY THANKS TO VETERANS FOR PEACE

[Zlatko Waterman]

Note:

Here is an eloquent short essay about the attitude of one Vietnam veteran. I find his point of view appealing and based on simple fact. We seem willing to ignore the facts these days: the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqis, some through accidents caused by the mere presence of US firepower in their country; the damage to the US Constitution; the credibility of American intentions around the world; the morality of torture, dismissal of due process of law, and illegal domestic spying, all defended by the current "President."

Let the eloquence of John Grant speak for itself. And pay attention to the simple wisdom of the late Susan Sontag. Let's not "be stupid together."

--Z

(paste from CommonDreams.org)



The Lessons of War That Few Have Learned
by John Grant

John Grant is president of the Veterans for Peace chapter in Philadelphia

As I exited the Staten Island Ferry recently for an antiwar demonstration of 300,000 people down Broadway, a young man next to me noticed my Veterans for Peace T-shirt.

"What war?" he asked.

"Vietnam."

"Thanks for your service," he said.

"The war never should have happened," I told him. "It's not something to thank me for."

"Thanks, anyway," he said as we parted.

As a veteran, you get "Thanks for your service" a lot. It always irritates me. I never quite know how to respond because I'm not proud of my service in Vietnam, and don't feel I should be thanked for it.

I was 18 when I joined. I spent the most influential year of my life in Vietnam. Then I came home and educated myself. If people want to thank me, let them do it for what I learned from the experience, not for going there.

The main thing I learned? U.S. military interventions since World War II have generally been dishonest and in support of quite vicious governments. There's Iran in 1953 and Guatemala the next year. And, of course, Vietnam.

My service was hardly the stuff of national warrior myth. I was a kid, a radio direction finder in the mountains west of Pleiku locating enemy units so they could be destroyed. My job was to spin a silver antenna around and say here's a map coordinate, bomb it silly, and maybe, if I'm right, you'll hurt the enemy. Then again, if I'm wrong, you may level an innocent village.

You know... the fog of war.

I'm not a pacifist, though I have friends who are. I will defend myself with violence to the best of my ability. I feel that way, as well, about the military. But like a pistol, the problem is in whose hands the pistol is held and what he or she does with it. The military we have now is more and more the instrument of imperial assumptions beyond even the electoral process.

I know there are people who will distort what I'm saying, and I understand how they might feel. By implication, I'm commenting on the service of others, suggesting that they might transcend all the patriotic and macho mind-wash and consider what their service in places like Vietnam actually accomplished.

Instead of the superficial "Thank you for your service" approach, what if we honestly examined experiences like Vietnam and used them to learn something? Susan Sontag was crucified for saying this after 9/11: "By all means, let's mourn together, but let's not be stupid together." She was right.

If the men and women of the White House had valued the painful lessons of Vietnam over blind service, we would not be bogged down in another quagmire and we would not be having 300,000 people marching down Broadway led by a growing organization called Iraq Veterans Against the War.

These young men and women also choose to transcend the superficiality of "Thank you for your service." While these veterans honor the courage, and mourn the suffering and loss, of their friends in Iraq, they are acting on what they've learned from their experience, which is that the U.S. occupation is wrong and needs to be ended.

Anyone who feels this is unpatriotic should consider the words of a famous World War II combat bomber pilot: "The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher standard." That bomber pilot was George McGovern.

So next time you consider muttering to a vet, "Thanks for your service," take a moment to consider what that service meant to the people on the wrong end of it and whether it was worth all the pain and misery.

In my case, I'd rather be thanked for my service opposing the invasion and occupation of Iraq. In the winter of 2002, because of what I learned in Vietnam, I joined many others who were aware that the blind runaway train full of frightened and duped Americans racing toward Iraq was headed for disaster. Of course, the train went right over us.

If you need to thank me, thank me for that.

[firsty]

sontag said more than "let's not be stupid together," and that phrase is not why she was attacked after 9/11.

other than that, yeah.

[Zlatko Waterman]

You're probably referring to passages like this one:

(paste from THE NEW YORKER, SEPT. 24TH, 2001)

"Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a 'cowardly' attack on 'civilization' or 'liberty' or 'humanity' or 'the free world' but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions... f the word "cowardly" is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): Whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards."

(end paste)

As a "left-wing intellectual", Susan Sontag, living in France a good deal of the last part of her life, was not overly popular with Republicans in Kansas, I couldn't agree with you more.

--Z

[stilltrucking]

Welcome home.

We missed you.

[jimboloco]

Mercy, they will say that over and over, itis dulling, stupid, Gee Wally, thanks for your service?

Yeah service to what? Bullshit.

This week we had calebrations of Nurses Week, and as part of the festivities, we had an "honor the military veterans" day. Most folks who I work with know my anger and antiwar attidude, yet I know 1 (Rita), 2 (Caroline) 3 (Chris) of the ladies I work with who were in the military, oddly enough, all of them Air Farce, and of course they are mainstream, yet 2 of them are outspoken anti-Republicans. we were all asked to submit a photo of ourselves in the military to post up, which I consented to do and indeed, this week, my co-workers have been aksing me wuestions, and I have told them all, resolutely, yes, I was on my way to Vietnam and within two years after that I was marching in the street with Ron Kovics against the war. That usually makes them wonder, yet I can tell who is responsive and who is not. i have a friend, Tina, who was interim manager on my unit, got a promo, now is a big shot, she came in to our unit on Thursday, told me she saw the photo and I said I'd marched against the war less than 2 years after the photo was taken, to which she gave me a warm 'I know." But was said in a crowded situation so I got to ventilate a bit. I refuse to take that stubborn nonsense anymore. "Why thankyou for your service as a pawn, an Uncle Sam suck-offer, a stooge, a gun-runner for a corrupt regime with a history as nefarious and ruthless as anything in human history, the United States of America."
That being said, I still supported the surgical air strikes on the Serbian artillery that had rained down upon Sarajevo, and I supported the UN forces in the Balkans, and I supported the Afghanistan invasiion and overthrow of the Taliban, with UN and international help. But the disability to disengage from nefarious scheming, from our inherited history of European colonialization transformed into American domination from the Spanish-American Wars and into the present day, still trying to access hegemonize and irritate for the benefit of the wealthy elite and their running dogs is the rule, not the exception, unfortunately.

Most run of the mill military types would say, the common trooop doesn't know the big picture and does not understand why the orders are given. It is their duty to obey and only lack of diiscipline and worse, homesickness, or being female, would aggravate the morale of the troops. Furthermore, they will say that if we cut and run from Iraq, we will then signal to every terrorist that we will not follow thru and so we can't cut and run now. To which I say hogwash. The American people are not behind this war because it is a tragic stupid war, based upon lies, deceipt, manipulation. What mother tomorrow on Mother's Day will pass it the first time grieving for a son or daughter who died since last Mother's Day?
And they will hear those same words, uttered in churches, throughout America, "Thankyou for your son's or daughter's service, " and expect a smile, and greived Mothers will smile back and try to believe. Occasionally some of them will speak up, but the hardest thing to overcome is the intransigence that hopoes to smooth over, hopes to contain, again, maintaining the status-quo, more boys for the wars.

Mothers Say No To War: Peace Activists Plan Mother’s Day Protest Outside White House


It is consoling as always to bereminded that their are others who are speaking out and who refuse to accept the dogma that urges us toward dull conformity.


Don't thank me for my military service, you fucking moronz.

By all means, let's be thankful together, but let's not be stupid together. That might be a good way to reply, as a way to open doors of intransigence and breath fire into the dark. light candles where you may, dear friends.

just don't forget to curse in good company. Damn!