![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 16 to 40 of 52. Go back in thread:
Posted by tealady on March 29, 2006, at 15:11:15
In reply to Here is another view...long but worth reading..., posted by wildcard11 on March 28, 2006, at 21:41:57
>
> I pass this on because sometimes we just forget. This is a good one!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Steven R Chandler, CMSgt
> > 332 ELRS/Vehicle Management
> > Flight Balad Air Base, Iraq
> >
> > The other day, my nine year old son wanted to know why we were at
> > war...My husband looked at our son and then looked at me. My husband and
> > I were in the Army during the Gulf War and we would be honored to serve
> > and defend our Country again today. I knew that my husband would give him
> > a good explanation. My husband thought for a few minutes and then told my
> > son to go stand in our front living room window.
> >
> > He said "Son, stand there and tell me what you see?"
> >
> > "I see trees and cars and our neighbor's houses." he replied.
> >
> > "OK, now I want you to pretend that our house and our yard is the United
> > States of America and you are President Bush."
> >
> > Our son giggled and said "OK."
> >
> > "Now son, I want you to look out the window and pretend that every house
> > and yard on this block is a different country" my husband said.
> >
> > "OK Dad, I'm pretending."
> >
> > "Now I want you to stand there and look out the window and pretend you
> > see Saddam come out of his house with his wife, he has her by the hair
> > and is hitting her. You see her bleeding and crying. He hits her in the
> > face, he throws her on the ground, then he starts to kick her to death.
> > Their children run out and are afraid to stop him, they are screaming and
> > crying, they are watching this but do nothing because they are kids and
> > they are afraid of their father. You see all of this, son....what do you
> > do?"
> >
> > "Dad?"
> >
> > "What do you do son?"
> >
> > "I'd call the police, Dad."
> >
> > "OK. Pretend that the police are the United Nations. They take your call.
> > They listen to what you know and saw but they refuse to help. What do you
> > do then son?"
> >
> > "Dad.......... but the police are supposed to help!" My son starts to
> > whine.
> >
> >
> > "They don't want to son, because they say that it is not their place or
> > your place to get involved and that you should stay out of it," my
> > husband says.
> >
> > "But Dad...he killed her!!" my son exclaims.
> >
> > "I know he did...but the police tell you to stay out of it. Now I want
> > you to look out that window and pretend you see our neighbor who you're
> > pretending is Saddam turn around and do the same thing to his children."
> >
> > "Daddy...he kills them?"
> >
> > "Yes son, he does. What do you do?"
> >
> > "Well, if the police don't want to help, I will go and ask my next door
> > neighbor to help me stop him." our son says.
> >
> > "Son, our next door neighbor sees what is happening and refuses to get
> > involved as well. He refuses to open the door and help you stop him," my
> > husband says.
> >
> > "But Dad, I NEED help!!! I can't stop him by myself!!"
> >
> > "WHAT DO YOU DO SON?" Our son starts to cry.
> >
> > "OK, no one wants to help you, the man across the street saw you ask for
> > help and saw that no one would help you stop him. He stands taller and
> > puffs out his chest. Guess what he does next son?"
> >
> > "What Daddy?"
> >
> > "He walks across the street to the old ladies house and breaks down her
> > door and drags her out, steals all her stuff and sets her house on fire
> > and then...he kills her. He turns around and sees you standing in the
> > window and laughs at you. WHAT DO YOU DO?"
> >
> > "Daddy..."
> >
> > "WHAT DO YOU DO?" Our son is crying and he looks down and he whispers,
> > "I'd close the blinds, Daddy."
> >
> > My husband looks at our son with tears in his eyes and asks him. "Why?"
> >
> > "Because Daddy.....the police are supposed to help people who needs
> > them...and they won't help.... You always say that neighbors are supposed
> > to HELP neighbors, but they won't help either...they won't help me stop
> > him...I'm afraid....I can't do it by myself Daddy.....I can't look out my
> > window and just watch him do all these terrible things and...and.....do
> > nothing...so....I'm just going to close the blinds.... so
> >
> > I can't see what he's doing........and I'm going to pretend that it is
> > not happening."
> >
> > I start to cry. My husband looks at our nine year old son standing in the
> > window, looking pitiful and ashamed at his answers to my husband's
> > questions and he says...
> >
> > "Son"
> >
> > "Yes, Daddy."
> >
> > "Open the blinds because that man.... he's at your front door... "WHAT DO
> > YOU DO?"
> >
> > My son looks at his father, anger and defiance in his eyes. He balls up
> > his tiny fists and looks his father square in the eyes, without
> > hesitation he says: "I DEFEND MY FAMILY DAD!! I'M NOT GONNA LET HIM HURT
> > MOMMY OR MY SISTER, DAD!!! I'M GONNA FIGHT HIM, DAD, I'M GONNA FIGHT
> > HIM!!!!!"
> >
> > I see a tear roll down my husband's cheek and he grabs our son to his
> > chest and hugs him tight, and says... "It's too late to fight him, he's
> > too strong and he's already at YOUR front door son.....you should have
> > stopped him BEFORE he killed his wife, and his children and the old lady
> > across the way. You have to do what's right, even if you have to do it
> > alone, before its too late." my husband whispers. THAT scenario I just
> > gave you is WHY we are at war with Iraq. When good men stand by and let
> > evil happen son, THAT is the greatest atrocity in the world. "YOU MUST
> > NEVER BE AFRAID TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT! EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO DO IT ALONE!" BE
> > PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN! BE PROUD OF OUR TROOPS!! SUPPORT THEM!!! SUPPORT
> > AMERICA SO THAT IN THE FUTURE OUR CHILDREN WILL NEVER HAVE TO CLOSE THEIR
> > BLINDS..."
> >
> > This should be printed in every newspaper and posted in every school in
> > America . Of course that won't happen so we'll use the internet. If your
> > blinds are closed do nothing with this email. If they are open I do not
> > need to tell you what to do.
> >
> >
> > Steven R Chandler, CMSgt
> > 332 ELRS/Vehicle Management
> > Flight Balad Air Base, Iraq
>
> ****and now i am REALLY going....
>As I feel this may be directed at my poast, I'll reply.
IF Saddam or equivalent HAD coming knocking at your door.. ie invaded and started bombing the actual US , and if he had started mistreating US citizens in the US.. killing them, torturing them , imprisoning them ..
Obviously.. the right and just thing to do is to FIGHT.. its called DEFENCE
as I did point out that being invaded isdifferent. In my view a "just" time to fight!!
I thought I made that obvious.
But Saddam didn't.The answer to one side killing thousands or mistreating them (assuming this is the case) is not to go in and kill a few more thousands and imprison even more.
The answer is also NOT to take over that countries recources (oil income) then for yourself either.The answer Is NOT to put yourself above the conventions for war. The answer is NOT to rename the invasion as "not a war but unasked for "help"."
You cannot really call attacking another counrry on its soil DEFENCE. ??????
That "story" about the boy twists self-defence , someone invading his home and defending your family into an attack of a country on the other side of the world?That govt possibly may have been the countries best solution, at least in the South The US is not in a position to be judge, jury and executioner.
And the UN was asked ..and didn't agree??
It was an invasion attacking a popularly elected govt, the only one at the time that had some control of most of the factions in the south.
Perhaps if this country did not have a vast wealth of oil , or "Payback" was not a motive, the US would not have cared?
Consider Rwanda, a more obvious case of mistreatment of its citizens IMO. Did the US think it should "help" there..??
But there are many other examples. They just aren't as enticing as "targets".Everyone does have a choice, although admittedly in some cases its not great when its death or fight.
Posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 15:31:15
In reply to Re: Here is another view...long but worth reading... » wildcard11, posted by tealady on March 29, 2006, at 15:11:15
~i just received it and it was a different view so i posted it. i must of missed a post of yours but i agree w/ you...
Posted by tealady on March 29, 2006, at 15:32:04
In reply to I fibbed, posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 13:26:46
> I had to say this~ I am an American citizen. I DO NOT support the government. I feel they are causing more problems. I am saddened that GWB has the power he does yet no one can take it away?? Majority of the American people *I* know do not support this war, not one bit. They want GWB removed from office. War crimes?!? I myself don't understand BUT I WILL SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!!! Many whom are there b/c they wanted a college education or felt lost and this *appeared* to be a way out. Most are KIDS. They never expected to see this in their lifetime. It is a sad, sad situation. ****feeling a headache already~this is why i refuse to watch the news...
Yes I know how some of the kids ended up in the army with the schooloing incentive.
But every war has been fought by teenagers (kids), as part of the troops. No different today.Consider Germany under Hitler in WWII.. most Germans did not support the war either.. the kids were fighting the war. The Germans did "SUPPORT OUR TROOPS" though. It's the same( although the Germans had less choice)??
And yet the US(especially the Jews) has blamed the Germans.
Don't be surprised if the world blames the US?The Germans also obeyed orders in the concentration camps. An yet they were blamed too.
Their own prisoner of war camps followed the conventions for treatment of prisoners though.
Its the concentration camps that didn't. They didn't classify those as prisoners of war.Everyone does have a choice in how they treat their prisoners. Everyone has a choice on if they obey orders.
But, if you do follow psychology , you will see that most people just obey orders and in their mind this action is trsnferring responsibility for their actions to the person who gave the order.
That's how the army is trained..and the only way it can function as an army. Without a blind, unquestioning obeyance of orders and directions the army cannot function as a unit. The sticking together gives it the strength.. "united we fight, divided we fall" etc.But read up on one of the experiments run by psychologists back 40years ago.
There was a famous one where they got normal people in a trial. Asked them to flick a switch and administer a shock to subjects behind a screen IF they got the answer to a simple question wrong.
Most of the trial participants did it..and continued to do it inspite of the people receiving the shocks screaming in pain, even delivery lethal shocks.
I'm sure Dr Bob can provide a ref for you to read about this one? My memory is poor as I read it decades ago.
Of course, this experiment really didn't deliver shocks and the people behind the screen were actors.
But the majority of people just transferred the responsibility for the action of the possible murder of the subjects to the people in authority in their minds.. the person running the experiment. They questioned, but still went ahead and obeyed the orders or directives.
Normal people just went ahead and "murdered" on the instructions of someone else??
Bit of a worry isn't it?BUt its this obeyance of orders that makes an army function. They are just obeyng orders. Actually without hmans acting nin this way, there probably couldn't be armies or wars!!
It's the ability the get people to kill others and detach themselves and transfer the reponsibility for the killing away from themselves that allows wars to happen.The question is when do you stop obeying orders/ directives.
The Germans who merely obeyed orders were tried and some convicted as war criminals?Is it the same for the US military?
Posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 15:45:02
In reply to Re: I fibbed » wildcard11, posted by tealady on March 29, 2006, at 15:32:04
I have never served so i cannot say what is the mind frame of soldiers. I do know that once you sign, you cannot just say, "I quit." The public *may* have been mislead so why not the soldiers? They *could* have went on the understanding that xxx was going on. Now they are there and they know and see more truth than i can imagine. I personally never supported or voted for GWB and recall when everyone thought he was 'great'. Now i do not here that at all. *If* the public of the US was mislead enough to believe GWB, then why not the soldiers? I know i can sleep at night b/c of those who gave their lives for *my* freedom so i will always support our troops. Just my thought on it.
Posted by Sobriquet Style on March 29, 2006, at 17:10:36
In reply to Re: I fibbed » tealady, posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 15:45:02
>I know i can sleep at night b/c of those who gave their lives for *my* freedom so i will always support our troops. Just my thought on it.
I'm glad you can sleep at night :-)
How was your freedom in danger? If the US was invaded and attacked with nuclear weapons, or the threat was very real and the danger about to happen. I actually believe at present that the world is more unstable now, than it was before the invasion. However, whos to say it wouldn't be worse if the invasion never took place.
Here Bush says at the State of the Union address, 29 January 2003 on reasons how freedom would have possibly been taken away.....
"Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. These regimes could use such weapons for blackmail, terror, and mass murder...
Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein faced the prospect of being the last casualty in a war he had started and lost. To spare himself, he agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction.
For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement. He pursued chemical, biological and nuclear weapons even while inspectors were in his country...
The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary, he is deceiving."
Donald Rumsfeld, speaking to the press, 12 March:
"He claims to have no chemical or biological weapons, yet we know he continues to hide biological and chemical weapons, moving them to different locations as often as every 12 to 24 hours, and placing them in residential neighbourhoods."
They were never found, freedom was there all along?
I'll quote parts from another source which may have something to do with freedom for the Dollar against Opec euros.
"The Internally Stated US Goal of Securing the Flow of Oil from the Middle East
As early as April 1997, a report from the James A. Baker Institute of Public Policy at Rice University addressed the problem of "energy security" for the United States, and noted that the US was increasingly threatened by oil shortages in the face of the inability of oil supplies to keep up with world demand. In particular the report addressed "The Threat of Iraq and Iran" to the free flow of oil out of the Middle East. It concluded that Saddam Hussein was still a threat to Middle Eastern security and still had the military capability to exercise force beyond Iraq's borders.
The Bush Administration returned to this theme as soon as it took office in 2001, by following the lead of a second report from the same Institute. <2> This Task Force Report was co-sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, another group historically concerned about US access to overseas oil resources. The Report represented a consensus of thinking among energy experts of both political parties, and was signed by Democrats as well as Republicans. <3>
The report, Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century, concluded: "The United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a de-stabilizing influence to ... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. Therefore the US should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/ diplomatic assessments."
The Task Force meetings were attended by members of the new Bush Administration's Department of Energy, and the report was read by members of Vice-President Cheney's own Energy Task Force. When Cheney issued his own national energy plan, it too declared that "The [Persian] Gulf will be a primary focus of U.S. international energy policy." It agreed with the Baker report that the U.S. is increasingly dependent on imported oil and that it may be necessary to overcome foreign resistance in order to gain access to new supplies.
Later the point was made more bluntly by Anthony H. Cordesman, senior analyst at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies: "Regardless of whether we say so publicly, we will go to war, because Saddam sits at the center of a region with more than 60 percent of all the world's oil reserves."
Have a read of the link, I hope its all civil, I think it comes from an educational source originally.
http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/iraq.html
~
Posted by Sobriquet Style on March 29, 2006, at 17:24:27
In reply to Re: I fibbed » wildcard11, posted by tealady on March 29, 2006, at 15:32:04
>There was a famous one where they got normal people in a trial.
The Milgram experiment (Obedience to Authority Study)
>I'm sure Dr Bob can provide a ref for you to read about this one?
Until he does :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
~
Posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 18:08:44
In reply to Freedom, posted by Sobriquet Style on March 29, 2006, at 17:10:36
>>How was your freedom in danger?
I did not necessarily mean in 2003. I mean that i can sleep at night for those who have given their time and some, their lives throughout the history of the US. Have you ever lost someone very close to you b/c they were defending in one way or another, your freedom? I have. I have made it clear what i think of GWB by NOT saying anything but the troops from *my* country are there, right or wrong, risking their lives in conditions i cannot fathom, for me. I think that's a hell of a lot and yes, GWB put them there, nothing or no one else. They signed up for whatever reason,(i mentioned some above), and had to uphold to their *duty*. I'm almost positive they would much rather be home than where they are. Just to clarify again, *I* do not support the war. Most do not by what i have read. I can imagine a good bit of the troops do not either.
Posted by special_k on March 29, 2006, at 18:49:19
In reply to Re: Freedom » Sobriquet Style, posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 18:08:44
Yes. You can't replicate the Milgram experiment because now it is considered unethical.
The participants were American (though to be fair I expect you would get similar results from people in most countries)
They did the shocking (most of 'em) then afterwards they were informed they were trying to see whether American's follow orders just like the Nazi's did.
Yeah... That's gotta be a little traumatic (more than a little).
I don't support the troops.
I feel sad for them.That was a tragedy (one of the tragedies) of Vietnam... The soliders come home (after being traumatised fighting) only to find that people had been PROTESTING the war and didn't support it.
I personally think the lesson to take from this is that if you go kill people...
You might be popular for a bit but eventually... People might well change their mind and conclude that it wasn't okay for you to have done that.
And we have to live with ourselves :-(
I feel sad for the troops.
Real sad. But personally... I don't support them if supporting them means supporting the killing of more Iraq citizens...
Posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 18:52:59
In reply to Re: Freedom, posted by special_k on March 29, 2006, at 18:49:19
would you support any troops?
Posted by Sobriquet Style on March 29, 2006, at 18:59:33
In reply to Re: Freedom » Sobriquet Style, posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 18:08:44
>I did not necessarily mean in 2003.
My mistake, I thought you was refering to Iraq, and how your freedom was in danger from that country. eg. danger in the sense the US would be invaded, bombs etc,
>I have made it clear what i think of GWB by NOT saying anything but the troops from *my* country are there, right or wrong, risking their lives in conditions i cannot fathom, for me.
And their pay cheque :-)
>GWB put them there, nothing or no one else.
And others pulling the strings behind the scenes no doubt.
>Have you ever lost someone very close to you b/c they were defending in one way or another, your freedom?
It would depend how you define freedom, like freedom in the context of wars and invading countries, or something else, but I think I know what you mean.
~
Posted by Sobriquet Style on March 29, 2006, at 19:03:57
In reply to Not specific to any war but » special_k, posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 18:52:59
>would you support any troops?
I have great respect for Special Forces in particular.
:-)
~
Posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 19:05:51
In reply to Re: Freedom, posted by Sobriquet Style on March 29, 2006, at 18:59:33
but the shame is that their pay check is not much...wonder how much GWB makes??? maybe he should be there...
Posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 19:06:45
In reply to Re: Not specific to any war but, posted by Sobriquet Style on March 29, 2006, at 19:03:57
Posted by Sobriquet Style on March 29, 2006, at 19:09:22
In reply to yes » Sobriquet Style, posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 19:05:51
Posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 19:11:27
In reply to All by himself? :-) (nm) » wildcard11, posted by Sobriquet Style on March 29, 2006, at 19:09:22
Posted by zeugma on March 29, 2006, at 19:41:54
In reply to yes » Sobriquet Style, posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 19:05:51
> but the shame is that their pay check is not much...wonder how much GWB makes??? maybe he should be there...>.
you know, I have had this thought often myself. But I think he should not be sent there all by himself. We could use an entire Administration to manage the chaos there. Dick Cheney would be an especially useful strategic asset. He could plan duck hunting expeditions with suspected insurgents, and use his 'bad aim' to devastating effect.
-z
Posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 19:53:35
In reply to not all by himself » wildcard11, posted by zeugma on March 29, 2006, at 19:41:54
Posted by special_k on March 29, 2006, at 21:09:40
In reply to Not specific to any war but » special_k, posted by wildcard11 on March 29, 2006, at 18:52:59
> would you support any troops?
um...
i think peaceful alternatives should be exhausted first.
i think... there must be another way.
i don't know that i would... though i guess if someone invaded my country then self defence. i'd support people fighting in self defence. yeah.
it is a hard one.
my grandfather was a pacifist. caused a fair few problems in the family i think. he was a methodist minister. he harbored men who didn't want to fight (because they were pacifists) in the second world war. that is fighting against hitler. he was imprisoned for doing that. kicked out of the church. apparantly that is when he became very bitter... at how god could let that happen to him when he believed he was doing gods will.
a lot of people struggled with his stance on that. because most people think that was a just war if any war was.
but i guess his stance was that people shouldnt be MADE to fight. i agree with that.
would i have supported teh troops fighting against hitler?
depends what you mean by 'supporting' the troops i guess.
i think hitler needed to be stopped yes.
but then civilians were bombed in the name of stopping hitler. i don't support the bombing of civilians...
so it is a hard one.
i guess i don't support violence.
hard to say...
Posted by deirdrehbrt on March 30, 2006, at 10:54:58
In reply to Re: Not specific to any war but, posted by special_k on March 29, 2006, at 21:09:40
I don't think alot of people have an idea of how brutally terrible war can be.
On my headboard are my godfather's dog tags. He was in the Korean "conflict". He managed to survive one day by hiding beneath the bodies of his dead friends after the North Korean Army had devastated his group.
He used to enjoy hunting, but never after the war. He had a job afterward repairing underwater pipelines and one job took him back to Korea. He couldn't get off the plane.
War is not meant to be fought by human beings. I heard stories of Viet Nam when I first joined the Air Force. That was in 1979, and there were quite a few people who had been there around. One of these people was a medic that worked at my station. His description of injuries that people received were horrendous.
Granted, the people in Iraq now have it better than these two wars. The number of dead and injured is much less than in other wars or conflicts. Still, it's not easy. Many people there are reporting for treatment of mental disorders. It must be especially tough for those there who don't support the war; those who played the odds of receiving an education in the National Guard or regulars without having to fight.
I come from a military family. My Dad was in the Navy, I have one uncle who was a Green Beret. My Godfather was in the army, as were both of my grandfathers. Another uncle was a Marine. One of my cousins was also in the Army. Many of my family expect people to support this war. I can't because I don't believe that the American public has sufficient information to believe that we are there for just cause. Personally, I do not believe that information exists and I don't know if the entire truth will ever be revealed.
Here's what I do know: The United States has the raw materials to make chemical and biological weapons. The United States has active Nuclear weapons. The United States appears to be holding prisoners and treating them in a manner contrary to the Geneva Convention. It appears that the United States invaded a sovereign country without the authority of the United Nations.
My personal opinion is that all nations should be held to the same standards. How to achieve that, I don't know, but to say "You can have WMD, or nuclear power, or whatever, but You over there, can't" just seems wrong.
I"m rambling again... time to shut up.
--Dee
Posted by wildcard11 on March 30, 2006, at 11:07:02
In reply to Re: Not specific to any war but **Trigger**, posted by deirdrehbrt on March 30, 2006, at 10:54:58
you make excellent points!!
Posted by Damos on March 30, 2006, at 15:26:28
In reply to Re: Freedom, posted by special_k on March 29, 2006, at 18:49:19
> That was a tragedy (one of the tragedies) of Vietnam... The soliders come home (after being traumatised fighting) only to find that people had been PROTESTING the war and didn't support it.
>
> I personally think the lesson to take from this is that if you go kill people...
>
> You might be popular for a bit but eventually... People might well change their mind and conclude that it wasn't okay for you to have done that.
>
> And we have to live with ourselves :-(
>
> I feel sad for the troops.
>
> Real sad. But personally... I don't support them if supporting them means supporting the killing of more Iraq citizens...I hate war too special, I hate war so much. I just need to post this and here just seemed like the right place.
I was lucky enough to speak long and hard to two Vietnam veterans a long time ago. And what hurt was NOT that people protested the war. It was that people protested them. What hurt was being spat on and having blood thrown on them and being called "Baby Killers". What hurt was the being made to feel ashamed, deeply crushingly ashamed of who they were, what they'd one, serving their country. What hurt was being looked at with disgust by people in the street, people even crossing the street to avoid them. Being ostracised. Being too ashamed to wear their uniforms in the street (instructed not to) because of what people did. What hurt was bringing home the genetic effects of Agent Orange and other things and passing that on to their children and their children's children. What hurt was not being welcomed home like every other generation of people who'd served their country with courage and honour had been. What hurt was being rejected by the RSL (In Aust) the Returned Services League and told "You wouldn't know what a war was!" and you're not eligible to join cause we've decided Vietnam wasn't one. What hurt was people who didn't know them making judgements about their morality, humanity and basic decency without ever having spoken to them. What hurt was being told that all of their feelings about everything that happened to them weren't valid. Being denied treatment and identity, that hurt.
I'm sorry this just really upsets me. I can still remember seeing the angels of death and despair circling in their eyes. I can still remember them recounting the names of those they had lost to suicide since the war. And I remember their pain. I have failed to do them justice here and I'm sorry for that.
I remember one of them telling me about the choice to do a second tour. A choice that was based on the fact that his being older and more experienced might mean that one less young man died. I remember him telling me of trying to explain this to his wife and children, and how they could never understand that choice - how no-one could ever understand any of it, unless they'd been there - been faced with those terrible choices.
I remember them both with so much pride - Lest We Forget.
You should be very proud of your Grandfather (I think it was) special, his strength and courage live on in you. It's people like you who CAN change the world.
Posted by Declan on March 30, 2006, at 19:11:40
In reply to Re: Freedom ***Trigger*** » special_k, posted by Damos on March 30, 2006, at 15:26:28
So Damos, that happened to them? They were spat on in the streets and called babykillers? The reason I ask is that I've heard both that this happened and that it is a myth. Apart fom whether it actually happened in Australia or not, the tenor of the times may have been enough to make them feel like that. I never heard of it myself. Blood thrown over the stockexchange I remember. There was the strike that prevented Christmas mail deliveries to the troops in Vietnam. Burning of flags, of course, victory to the Vietcong ditto.
If you have to fight in a war, it might help the way you feel about it after to have a coherant and believable story about the war. Maybe.
Declan
Posted by special_k on March 30, 2006, at 19:32:14
In reply to Re: Freedom ***Trigger*** » Damos, posted by Declan on March 30, 2006, at 19:11:40
i imagine people fight because they believe it is justified.
i imagine people feel proud of people who fight because they believe it is justified.to have the justification undermined / ripped away must be very painful indeed when you (or people you know) have risked their lives (or given their lives) to 'the cause'.
i don't know about the reception the vietnam soldiers got.
my only contact... is in reading "the things they carried" and there the emphasis was on the justification being ripped away (and i guess the point that the justification didn't count for sh*t at the time really because the usual rules didn't apply...)
i guess it is hard when there is a lot of personal stuff at stake.
my concern is that
IMHO
it is better to come to believe war isn't justified than to keep supporting people you care about going... to keep going... to keep on killing innocent civilians.
i mean...
dropping two nuclear bombs put an end to WWII
was it worth it?
depends on where you live maybe...
many japanese civilians...
many descendents are still feeling the effects of that...peaceful means...
i don't think we do that properly :-(
laws were set in place after WWII so that if anybody started doing some of the things Hitler was doing before / during the war then people would be able to move in faster (to apprehend them and try them in a court of law i like to think).
the UN... I don't know too much about them...
but i figure they are the most global organisation we have got.
and i thought... they werent' taken very seriously because they don't have troops / manpower of their own.
i don't understand why if people think it is time to move the troops in...
i don't understand why it isn't up to the UN.
and i don't understand why the UN doesn't get control of the people who wish to fight (i don't believe in compulsory draft i don't think anybody should be made to kill other people not even in self defence)i was a pacifist before i found out my grandfather was a pacifist.
i didn't really know anything about him until his funeral.
and what do you know... he had a masters degree in philosophy and theology...
amazing...
he was very embittered (and also getting on rather) from what i remember of him.
maybe we would have gotten on if i was older... or he was younger or something...
or maybe not.
hard to know.
but rather freaky for me to find points of contact with my ansestors. yuk. or something...
grandfather on my mothers side...
Posted by Damos on March 30, 2006, at 20:28:02
In reply to Re: Freedom ***Trigger*** » Damos, posted by Declan on March 30, 2006, at 19:11:40
Sadly both have passed away, one to cancer and the other a heart attack. Did it really happen, or did they just need to believe it did, I honestly can't say. They believed it did. Sad either way, just so very sad. And like you I've heard both. Only being around 10 at the time we pulled out my 'actual' memories of the times aren't that great.
Posted by Declan on March 30, 2006, at 23:38:56
In reply to Re: Freedom ***Trigger*** » Declan, posted by Damos on March 30, 2006, at 20:28:02
It's interesting to reflect on those times and the particularly uncomfortable position they were in. Cynically used by the government, and assigned a particular place in the youth culture thing that they may have preferred not to have. We're very tribal.
Declan
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