Potent pictures

I didn't take these, one of my students who just returned from a school trip to Washington DC did. You know, when I was in high school and we were studying about the Vietnam war my best friend at the time (a girl named Dawn) and I went to see a movie in theatres called "Platoon" starring Charlie Sheen. We were both blown away, we were crying at how horrible and hellish war could be. (of course it may have been different if I'd seen it with a bunch of guys. One friend who was in ROTC thought it was a bitchin' cool fun action movie.) Dawn and I asked each other what we thought we would've done if we had been in high school or college during Vietnam. Would we support the Johnson and Nixon administrations, or would we have opposed the war. Would we have protested? What if I had been drafted?

Fortunately it was an abstract, academic exercise, since the most serious military involvement of the Reagan era was the invasion of a teensy, tiny island nation called Grenada. I really didn't know. I knew I'd be scared both to go and fight the Vietcong and to stay and fight the powers-that-be. I had two uncles who were great friends and could talk food and wine and local, municipal politics- but they never talked about the war. One went and served as a medic, the other went to Canada.

Frankly, I think that a lot of us kids of the eighties had unrealistic stereotypes of war opponents. We figured to stand up for peace would turn you into something like the fellow in the picture above, who, I was told, has been protesting for nuclear disarmament six hours a day since 1982. Well, today someone who's opposed to war, looks like a middle-aged, overweight, middle-class, Midwestern, white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant male. Married, father of three, active in his church. Laundered clothes, not too old or ragged. Showered and shaved, doesn't use drugs, has never even tried marijuana. It looks like someone who loves Jesus, loves his family, loves his country, appreciates civility and a certain amount of "law and order," and who does not hate, resent, or blame the troops who are fighting for us.

You can say that I'm lucky or spoiled that I never had to face a draft or that I'm not as much of a real man because I haven't served in the military voluntarily. And maybe you're right. Maybe as a Gen-Xer, I have it too easy. Maybe it's safer to be opposed to this war than it would've been to protest that last one. Frankly, we should all be thanking God that Iraq isn't tearing our families and society apart the way Iraq did. We may disagree, even vehemently, but we just change the subject or avoid the subject. No one is screaming in (or spitting) in faces.

But I guess that if I knew that the government lied and covered it up, if they were unclear or even obtuse about the causes and reasons for entering and staying in the war. If I heard that they were secretly invading and bombing Cambodia (practicing war games, hoping to provoke Iran)... yeah, I'd have a hard time sitting on the fence, even if it could get me in trouble.

Some say, "My country, love it or leave it!!! MY COUNTRY, RIGHT OR WRONG!!!"
I say, more calmly and quietly, "My country, love it enough to tell it that it has a problem instead of enabling it. My country, when it's wrong, speak up and try to get it right."