We are living in a time that is as polarizing, depressing, frustrating, and disheartening as we've ever seen in our lifetimes. This election cycle may be the most important vote you've ever made in your life. Will our republic and its strong democracy continue or will we go down the road of authoritarianism? We will all find out in November.
Today I was watching a show that listed the top ten Viet Nam era songs, I'm not going to list them as you can watch the show yourself to see, but I was surprised to find myself getting emotional as they played the songs and talked about their meanings.
It has been more than fifty years since we as a nation went through all the things I listed above that we are going through now and yet I found myself, multiple times, getting weepy and emotional as the songs stirred up memories of that era in me. You would think that there has been enough time past to move on but damn if I can.
I was one of the last draft classes for this war and believe me it was a roller coaster of emotions on draft day. My three best friends and I were lucky enough to have high numbers pulled so we didn't have to go to Viet Nam but we did leave school early and high tail it to Wisconsin where you could drink at eighteen back then. We celebrated not going off to die by pouring massive amounts of beer into us and then recklessly driving back home. Safely but stupidly.
I had an Uncle who went to Viet Nam and thankfully he came back in one piece but to be honest he did have some issues for the rest of his life. He and I would talk about it occasionally, although he was loathe to, and I tried to help him to move on but it was a war that hurt everyone that went even if you weren't hit with a bullet or shrapnel. One of the most moving nights of my life was when my boss at the time, who served two tours in Viet Nam, came into town and I invited my Uncle to join us. The connection they made immediately and the things they discussed will stay with me for the rest of my life.
The country was so divided over this war that peaceful protests turned violent as police routinely beat the protestors with clubs and other things meant to inflict maximum pain and suffering. To be sure it was mostly us young kids who were against the war to begin with but eventually the numbers swung in favor of most people wanting it to end. When Walter Cronkite went on TV and announced to the whole country that the Pentagon was lying about the casualty numbers and the war was clearly not winnable, it spelled the end for our involvement. When you lose Cronkite you're done.
Like America usually does routinely now, but never did back then, our departure from Viet Nam was a total cluster fuck as we left behind thousands of locals that helped us, and we put their lives in danger by abandoning them. A complete disgrace that still bothers me to this day. Again, emotions just won't go away.
I haven't even gotten into the whole college kids killed in Ohio, or our horrible treatment of returning soldiers, or the tens of thousands of kids who died from having Agent Orange sprayed on them in Viet Nam, and a hundred other life changing events surrounding the whole war and our involvement. If you were alive then you know and if you weren't I could never explain it to you.
We lost thousands of kids, kids who couldn't even vote yet but were sent off to be shot at, and just as bad, forced to shoot another human being, for nothing. It depresses me to think about it now and it makes my mind go back to those days and relive the sights, sounds, and smells of the protests I was in the middle of on campus and downtown Chicago. I like to think we did a good thing to get the war ended but it still cost our country a lot in both human loss and loss of trust for our leaders. It was an awful time and while things aren't quite at Viet Nam level horror today, I see the same divide over our direction choices and it frankly angers me.
Some psychologist say that going through these purges is good for our country's soul. That it helps to clear the air and and set new boundaries. I disagree. If you are invested in our country then you are on one side or the other and when the elections are over half the country is going to be very unhappy and that makes me nervous. The rhetoric and name calling is so fierce and rabid that the losing side is going to think about making someone pay for their loss and that is not something we can survive with a fractured country right now.
As someone who still has strong emotions from events of more than fifty years ago can tell you, recovering from it is not easy.
Comments