We Stand Our Ground

We Stand Our Ground By William Rivers Pitt t r u t h o u t | Perspective Sunday 10 August 2003 I must begin by saying that standing here before you is, simply, one of the greatest honors of my life. I have never served in the armed forces in any capacity. My father, however, did. He volunteered for service in Vietnam in 1969. The changes that war wrought upon him have affected, for both good and ill, every single day of my life. Vietnam did not only affect the generation that served there. It affected the children of those who served there, and the families of those who served there. That war is an American heirloom, great and terrible simultaneously, handed down from father to son and from mother to daughter, from father to daughter and from mother to son. The lessons learned there speak to us today, almost thirty years hence. Let me tell you a quick story about my father. His call to the freedom bird came while he was still out in the field. He arrived at Dulles Airport to meet my mother still dressed in his bush greens, still wearing the moustache, with the mud of Vietnam still under his fingernails and stuck inside the waffle of his boot sole. A few days earlier, he had come across a beautiful old French rifle. It was given to him by a Vietnamese friend, a former teacher with three children who had been conscripted permanently into the military. My father managed to bring this rifle home with him, and sent it on the flight in the baggage hold along with his duffel. My father and my mother stood waiting at the baggage claim for his things to come down. The people there - and this was 1970, remember - backed away from him as if he was radioactive. They knew where he had just come from. If the greens were not a giveaway, the standard issue muddy tan he and all the vets wore upon return from Vietnam was. When the rifle came down the belt, not in a package or a box, just laying there in all its reality, the crowd was appalled and horrified. My mother and father looked at each other and wondered what these people were thinking. What did they think was happening over there? What did they think it is that soldiers do? Did they even begin to understand this war, and what it meant, what it was doing to American soldiers, to the Vietnamese soldiers like my father's friend, and to the civilians caught in the crossfire? The looks on those people's faces there said enough. The answer was no. They didn't know, and apparently didn't want to know. Now, thirty three years later, we are back in that same place again, fighting a war few understand that is affecting soldiers and civilians in ways only those soldiers and civilians can truly know. Ignorance, it seems, is also an American heirloom to be passed down again and again and again. Many of you know, far better than I do, what my father felt that day in Dulles. That is why I am honored to speak to you tonight. If the American people fully knew what this war in Iraq was really about, if they fully knew what it means today to be a soldier in that part of the world, they would tear the White House apart brick by brick. If the people had but a taste of the horror and the lies, they would repudiate this administration and all it stands for. The don't know, because they have been fed a glutton's diet of misinformation and fraud. Changing that is why we are here. The first of August saw a very interesting article published in the Washington Post. The title was, "US Shifts Rhetoric On its Goals in Iraq." The story quotes an unnamed administration source - I will bet you all the money in my wallet that this "source" was a man named Richard Perle - who outlined the newest reasons for our war over there. "That goal is to see the spread of our values," said this aide, "and to understand that our values and our security are inextricably linked." Our values. That's an interesting concept coming from a member of this administration. We make much of the greatness and high moral standing of the United States of America, and there is much to be proud of. The advertising, however, has lately failed completely to match up with the product. Rest of article at: http://truthout.org/docs_03/081003A.shtml

Note: http://truthout.org/doc...

Options

We Stand Our Ground

Contributed By

Topic

Article Rating

Options

Latest Editorials

Your Voice