I've got the Vietnam Deja Vu Blues

[Eloriel]

Today's attack was horrible. The most recent, and deadliest, of too many. It was bad enough that the 15 were killed, but it absolutely tore me up that they were on the way to the airport for their leave.

I know there's lots about this war that isn't like Vietnam. But there are way too many similarities. And DAMN! it brings back the memories, and I guess a lot of unhealed emotional wounds from that time on my part.

Not only do I want to sit here and cry my eyes out, I want to break someone's face. Why wouldn't they listen to us? Why couldn't we MAKE them Listen? I HATE them for not listening to us. We KNEW it would be like this. Nothing that has happened was worth even one death, let alone the hundreds we've suffered so far. And the maiming. OH. DEAR. GOD. The maiming.

I am so angry, and so heartbroken and heartsick, I can't even think straight (or see through my tears). We DID all this once before; we were supposed to have learned our lesson.

Like I said, I just want to break someone's face.

Eloriel

[mandyky]

1. Idiot boy could have let the inspectors

inspect more, worked on diplomacy at the UN Security Council, made better plans for winning the peace, and just cooled his heels for 6 months, but no he had to go in then. Forget that most of the world's people were against this invasion, it was his way or the highway.
Nice move, George. If I believed in Hell, I would say there is a special corner of it for you, what I will say is you have mucked up your Karma, BIG TIME!!

[KoKo]

2. We tried, but "they" weren't ready to listen. The people. Concerned with

their own lives, thinking it was part of 9/11, thinking it would be a cake walk like Poppy's Invasion, thinking about how they were getting a tax break, and that Clinton had made America weak as they listened to Rush, and watched Laci Petersen, and Reality Shows, and the others too worried about their jobs, and stock losses and kids and schools just didn't know what to do about it all.

And, the "protestors" and folks who tried to warn in the print media and in the rest of the world were reduced to Saddam Supporters, Euro-trash supporters, Clinton Apologists, and in some cases just plain scum by the Media, and the Administration. And, while Robert Byrd warned in the most eloquent speeches ever heard on the Senate floor and Teddy Kennedy and Levin tried to introduce amendments to stop the PNAC train the compliant House and Senate went on to give the "Evil Ones" everything they wanted and they said: "We know that they have a plan for Iraq and it's important we do this, particularly for the Corporatists who have given us all our campaign money."

We did what we could. We are still doing what we can. It tears us apart to see this, but we have to keep ourselves together.

We must follow this like "hounds of Hell," until every last one of them is made to pay for what they have done.

[DrBB]

3. You nailed it, Eloriel

The one redeeming thing about the bloody travesty of VN was the thought that, by god, we had learned our lesson.

And here they are back again, the Nixon proteges, doing it all over again, right before our eyes. And we saw it coming and we screamed NOOOOOOOOOO! and they blithely went ahead, marching staight on, eyes wide shut, We'll show 'em! We'll get it RIGHT this time! Save the world from commu---er, terrorism, that's right! And Tom Friedman up there saying geez what a nifty idea for transforming the Middle East! And us saying, no no no no NO goddamnit, that's what it looks like and it never works, never never never never never. But they knew better and they went right on ahead.

And now--now--the unmitigated gall with which they blithely pronounce, Well, we went forward in good faith, the CIA lied to us, and geez, no one could have predicted things would go like this, looters 'n' resistance movements 'n' stuff, I mean come on, whaddya want, we're only human.

Well FUCK that. FUCK it. Because I sat here and saw it with nothing more than a brain, the internet and a reasonable memory capacity, I'm not a National Security Adviser, and I saw it, we saw it, we were out there on the street screaming it at you and you thought we were just a buncha counter-culture potheads when really we were grandmas and grandpas and IT workers and teachers and construction workers and stock analysts and what have you, along with the occasional pothead, and we saw it, as clear as the sun coming up tomorrow but you stupid fucking arrogant bastards went ahead and did it anyway, you knew better, you were so sure....

Aaaagh. pant pant pant. AAAArrrgh.

Can't hardly stand to think about it sometimes, I get so pissed off.

"Why does the left hate Bush?"

Ha.

Ha ha hah.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

[Eloriel]

10. OMG. You nailed it right back.

The one redeeming thing about the bloody travesty of VN was the thought that, by god, we had learned our lesson.


Oh, God, that is so right on. This is what -- well, one of the main things that makes me so fucking angry. It's the anger of impotence. WE KNEW, dammit. WE KNEW. Millions of us around the world knew. And what goddamned good did it do us? That's another big piece of it: I'm so sick and tired of not being listened to let alone heard. We've fought so many things since Nov. 2000, almost all for naught. When do we get a win? And why do people have to die because we can't get our elected "representatives" to hear us?

I guess we've been to damned polite. Maybe we should've been tearing buildings down instead of holding protest signs up.

"Why does the left hate Bush?"

I've never hated before. Oh, I came close, but never got there. Now I feel filled with hate over so many things, and filled with anger too, all the time. I watch myself respond to people at DU, and there's so much anger behind it all -- anger nearly defines me these days. I'm angry at everything, all the time, and when I'm not, I'm depressed.

I'm tired of the anger. I'm tired of the fight. I'm tired of fucking losing all the time, especially when there are lives at stake -- our beautiful American men and women and beautiful and innocent brown people thousands of miles away. I'm tired of not being heard, not even a little, tiny bit. It makes me feel like I must not really exist or something.

I'm sooooo tired.

Eloriel

[Pastiche423]

4. Over a year ago

I began bracing myself for what was to come.

But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't keep the yesteryear thoughts out of my mind and heart.

I was in my teens when the Viet Nam was in full roar. The fear of draft numbers was one of the main topics of discussion amongst my friends and I. We'd already seen or heard of the body bags of people we knew come home.

We screamed in protest for it to stop. There was no reason for the deaths then, as there is no reason for the deaths now.

Too many of the young people that came home alive from South Asia were forever lost. Their minds were sacrificed for old men's money and power. Those same people are much older now, many living in the streets of America.

My anger is so very hard to control now. I want to lash out daily at the people that have done this to my country again.

When will they ever learn? NEVER! Because they do not want or feel the need to. They are monsters w/o hearts or consciences. There will be no retribution.

[Eloriel]

11. I was 20 in 1968 when I married

my Spec. 5 Army guy (first husband), who was scheduled to go to Vietnam just 17 days later.

It was a terrible, terrible year. I spent half the time like a zombie, in a state of semi-suspended animation. Part of me not quite there most of the time. Trying to find ways to do the normal things, but it was all an act. There was hardly a minute that went by that some part of my brain wasn't focused on what might be happening on the other side of the world. The ever-present anxiety and fear.

There was a small "wives group" that tried to get together and do fun things once or twice a month -- go bowling and the like. It wasn't much fun, tho we tried to pretend it was. We almost didn't want to even know one another, let alone get close, in case something happened to one of the other wives' husbands. It might be catching. And it was especially painful when one of the husbands got "short" -- that was the most dangerous time.

I got to go to Hawaii on R&R. The best I can say about it is that it was bitter-sweet and far too short a time. I thought I hated Hawaii. I didn't, I learned many years later when I had to go back on a convention, I just hated the circumstances.

I was lucky -- the only person I knew who died was the brother of a high school boyfriend, and I barely knew the brother at all. But I do know that too many of my generation died for nothing, and too many more died by drinking or drugging themselves to death or going quietly mad, or in other equally stupid (unnecessary), senseless, useless ways.

I didn't keep my son's father's letters when we divorced, and years later I was sorry about that. I think my son would have liked to have had them. But I read the book, "Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam," and I realized all I needed to do was to give him that book. The names and places were different, but it was all the same otherwise. There was so much fear written between the lines of those letters that it was palpabale. If anyone wants to read it, read the last chapter first -- it's a real downer, and a terrible way to finish the book.

I hate so very much that it's all happening again, and our troops are being treated like dogs with not enough provisions and not enough proper medical care and benefits, while Halliburton (KBR) probably skims millions if not billions off the top.

I told a friend today about the attack this morning (she'd not seen any news), and she said, "Those bastards!!" I was a little taken aback. I'm sorry, but I can't see them, the insurgents, as the enemy. They should just roll over and let an imperialist foreign power have their way? No. My enemies are the sociopaths who decided to wage this war.

Eloriel

[IndianaGreen]

5. "Major combat operations are over!"

That's what a military doctor told the camera on ABC News as he was working on one of the wounded from the chopper. They get to live the irony of Bush's speech on the deck of the USS Lincoln.

[depakid]

6. I feel the same way you do

very sad & VERY angry. I was just a little scrub during the Vietnam war, but I remember watching the nightly casualty reports. I remember my older siblings taking me to the vigils at the mall (in D.C.). I remember the huge fights in the family- especially over my MIA bracelet. I remember the fall of Saigon.

Many of us who marched in the anti-war rallies KNEW exactly what was in store. It didn't take a big inferential leap to figure out that this was going to turn into a bloody quagmire- that the casualties would mount- and the consequences would be heartbreaking. By this time next year, anyone who reads this will in all probability have had a personal experience with someone who has been maimed or who has lost a loved one.

Why wouldn’t they listen to us? Well, hell, these types don’t listen to anyone. Not even their own fathers. Almost NONE of their policies are humane, much less economically or scientifically rational. The far right is corrupt to the point of self-destructiveness. Their constituency is stupid, shortsighted, visceral and greedy. I have given up all hope that they can be reached in any other way than by suffering harsh and personal consequences. Even then, many of them will continue to rationalize and validate their dysfunctional worldviews, rather than face up to an epiphany.

All we can do is try to contain our anger, shrug off our depression and try to educate the apathetic and the uninformed who, together with us, constitute a sizable majority of Americans. It’s a daunting and often thankless task. Often I think of somehow getting to Canada.

Vietnam Deja vu.

[raysr]

8. Lucky

Poor white kid, drafted, never went any futher than B'More. Go figure.

[DUreader]

7. learned our lesson, their lesson was to control the media

that is what they blame for Vietnam , media attention to Death and Dissent.

[DemoTex]

9. 1971, LAM SON 719, early winter invasion of Laos

I'm flying down the Ho Chi Mihn Trail, southbound at late-afternoon, when I hear an Army Chinook pilot, in the A Shau - the valley of the shadow of death - hollering on "guard" (243.0 mHz) "MAYDAY-MAYDAY-MAYDAY, going down vicinity of Tchepone. Flack trap! Repeat. 57 and smaller mike-mikes. FLAK TRAP!

That day, 30 dead-in-action, aboard the Boeing/Vertol Chinook. B/V still makes the vulnernable Chinook to "government" standards. Hell, I'd cut corners too. To make the mints that the assholes at Boeing and Bell are making.

Today 15 KIA on a Bush/Boeing/Vertol thingamajig - helicopter - deathtrap! FUCK BU$H!

[Eloriel]

13. Today's attack must've been an especially deja vu moment

for you.

I can't even imagine.

Welcome Home.

Eloriel

[Jax]

23. I still read this every day DemoTex

http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=25317&forum=DCForumID59&archive=#2
Your description of the horror and reality of war...so true and brought home every single day of this oily nightmare bloodbath the deserter has brought down on the world. Our military working 'for' Halliburton...sickening. Fuck bush at the very least. I hate him. Like Eloriel I want to hit someone or something every single day I hear of another horror, another loss, military and civillian, in Iraq.

Eloriel...THANK YOU for this post in the first place. You know one of my stories from that time, my Dad and the flag. Less than 2 years after his 'tour' of southeast Asia ended, my father was dead from 'cancer of everything'. Could not even tell where it started when they opened him up. I wish that on no one ever, but the deserter and his ilk will not only condemn our military to this war for Halliburton, they will throw them away when they are done with them and their health nightmares (physical and mental) will go on and on and on...

Sickening deja vu. Absolutely sickening.

Jax

[nostamj]

12. yeah. and i got quite a list of faces.....

my first politcal action was wearing a black armband after Kent State ( I was in HS, in a tiny CT town )

i squeaked by the last of the draft with a HIGH # ( and my gay identity, though not OUT yet, would probably have been a factor)

i've been in WTF mode for so long now.

everything, everything about BushCo has been worse that i could have imagined.

the iraq debacle included!

escalating death = desparate success

orwell has spun his remains into another demension (take me with you!!)

if BushCo prevails in 2004, the draft will be in place by the inauguration. war is good for bidness. the phony "war on terror" is way more cynical (corporately) than VN

but the death is just as real

[Paranoid_Portlander]

14. Kick

for the daytime DUers.

[dreissig]

15. Korea Was No Bargain Either

Eisenhower's military reputation allowed him to get away with shutting the Korean War down. Nixon should have done that to the Vietnam War. But Korea was no "victory" ... Eisenhower simply cut our losses.

With Korea as the backdrop, we should have known not to get involved in Vietnam. But with both of them behind us, we certainly should have avoided getting bogged down in Iraq. There are too many variables. Rumsfeld promised blitzkrieg, and he's now talking about a long nasty slog.

[9215]

16. Those who care

never think they do enough.

[Faygo Kid]

17. 1-2-3 What are we fighting for?

Country Joe had it right. This Iraqi conquest was madness, sheer madness from the beginning, and a year ago right now the Dems rolled over in the elections and played dead, and as a a result were road kill for Bush. This should not have happened! I think this is a more immoral war than Vietnam, when at least there was the argument of the "Domino effect." (Which I didn't buy). This is insanity, and it will only get worse. But, Bush can use its cost to advance his agenda of destroying all social programs (for the poor and middle class, that is; more transfer of wealth to the top works fine for him and his minions).

[mandyky]

21. Don't ask me, I don't give a damn

Next stop is Saddam...

Speaking of Country Joe, we need another Woodstock.

[RedEarth]

22. This is what Paul Krugman has implied also....

"Bush can use its cost to advance his agenda of destroying all social programs (for the poor and middle class, that is; more transfer of wealth to the top works fine for him and his minions)."

I think Krugman used the term "starve the beast".....(the beast being the social programs). The tax cuts and the cost of the invasion will leave little option but to eventually raise taxes or cut programs. As long as repub are in office, we know what the outcome will be.

[PapaClay]

18. I've had 'em since

the propaganda runup started.

:mad:

[stevedeshazer]

19. I know what you mean

In high school I was part of a student walkout in protest of the war (this was 1972). Then I turned eighteen and watched the lottery that no one wanted to win (draft order by birth date) and "won". How I didn't get drafted remains a mystery. My birthday was selected #1.

Friends just a bit older than me went; some didn't come back. The ones who did are still in pain.

Just like some who seem to have an unshakeable faith in God, somehow I maintain such faith in truth. That's what keeps me going. I know we are right and that we will win someday, perhaps with terrible cost.

[RedEarth]

20. Do you remember this song...."Eve of Destruction"...

I graduated from college in 1970 and as I recall this song by Barry McGuire came out about 1968. This song seemed to touch on the anger that many people felt about VN. Tragically, bush has managed to get our country into a similar quagmire in Iraq, by misleading the public that this was part of the war on terrorism.

The anger I felt during VietNam and the anger I feel now is just as great or even more so. I am so pissed-off that the media, congress, a lot of the public bought off on the lies of the bush admin during the lead up to the war. Truly tragic.



The Eastern World
It is explodin'
Violence flarin'
Bullets loadin'
You're old enough to kill
But not for votin'
You don't believe in war
But what's that gun you're totin'
And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin'


But you tell me over, and over, and over again my friend
Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction


Don't you understand what I'm tryin' to say
And can't you feel the fears I'm feelin' today
If the button is pushed, there's no runnin' away
There'll be no one to save
With the whole world in a grave
Take a look around you boy,
It's bound to scare you boy


And you tell me over, and over, and over again my friend
Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction


Yeah, my blood's so mad
Feels like coagulatin'
I'm sittin' here, just contemplatin'
I can't twist the truth
It knows no regulation
Handful of senators don't pass legislation
And marches alone can't bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin'
This whole crazy world
Is just too frustratin'


And you tell me over, and over, and over again my friend
Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction


And think of all the hate there is in Red China
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama
Ah you may leave here for four days in space
But when you return it's the same old place
The poundin' of the drums
The pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead, but don't leave a trace
Hate your next door neighbor, but don't forget to say grace


But you tell me over, and over, and over, and over again my friend
You don't believe we're on the eve of destruction
No, no, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction

[Jacobin]

24. My thoughts exactly.

For years after Vietnam, potential foreign military incursions were judged openly by "will it be another Vietnam?".

That has all ended with SmirkCo and his cabal of conquering PNACers.

I dodged the draft for Vietnam. I had friends killed there. I protested that war. I remember Kent State. I have a friend who went AWOL from Vietnam after killing a Vietnamese family. Discharged on a Section 8. Wanders aimlessly around and he's 55 years old. Child-like. Cannot stand to focus on or deal with reality because then he would have to confront the horrors he committed.

This is ghastly, brutal, unnecessary, wrong, illegal, immoral and godawful, and I'm still fucking amazed that so many still "support" the invasion and occupation and Smirk......this only three decades after Vietnam.

Well said. You voiced what I have been feeling.....helplessness, anger, futility.....I'm so pissed off at this country and its citizens for their complicity in this bastard's world domination agenda....