I'm Back!

Hello, my friends. It's been a while since I've blogged. I hope I haven't lost any followers.

Today I watched a DVD entitled U.S. vs. John Lennon. Thanks to Netflex, I found this video and decided to watch it since I was a teenager at the time of the VietNam War. I enjoyed the video very much. I watched it twice.

I was in high school when I first became aware of the VietNam conflict. I was also a wannabe hippie, beatnik, peacenik. I say wannabe because I never was, only wanted to be. I lived in a small Northwest Kansas town where these things were frowned upon by the people in town and by my parents. I played around with the idea some, but no one took me seriously, and I didn't pursue it. There weren't any concerts, protests or anything like it anywhere near me, so I quietly objected to the war in VietNam. I graduated from high school, got married and started a family. Then my brother joined the Army and went to VietNam. I didn't like the idea, but it wasn't my choice, it was his. I wrote to my brother. I worried about his well being. I was elated when he finally came home safe and sound. Many years later I learned that John had sent me letters which I never received. They contained information about what was happening there and I believe, how he felt about what was happening. I never received those letters. They were probably censored because of content. While he was there, I never publicly said a word about how I felt about the situation. Now, I wish I had.

My husband Al was also in VietNam. He was in the Air Force, not on the ground. When I began to watch this documentary, he left the house. He doesn't like to hear me or anyone else say that we shouldn't have been there. He remembers feeling that he was unappreciated when he came home. I'm sorry that that happened, but I don't believe the people blamed the soldiers for the war. They blamed the government. Al also had a cousin who was crippled for life in VietNam. No one wants to think that Lloyd's injuries were for nothing, but when the Iraq war began, Lloyd was with me on thinking that this, also, was a war which began for the wrong reasons.

Yes, I am against the Iraq war. It is the Taliban that we should be at war with, not the people in these countries. The Taliban is everywhere, even here in the United States. We can't get rid of them by declaring war on other countries. Too many people in the U.S. have labeled anyone from the Middle East as bad people, and this just isn't the case. As if the people there didn't have it bad enough, now they are faced with even worse situations.

Now I suppose there are those who will tell me that I do not support our troops. You're wrong. They are doing what they are ordered to do. Young men are losing their lives while many, many more are coming home with physical and emotional disabilities. Before we went to war, this country should have taken time to try to resolve problems in a reasonable and peaceful manner, working with other countries to stop the Taliban. That is what many of us thought Bush was going to do, but once he had "permission" to do what he felt was right, war was declared. Congress should never have given him so much power. We were too quick to declare war, thus causing many other countries to look at us in a more negative light. We have focused on one country, letting up in Afghanistan so that the Taliban could begin to organize once again there and in other countries.

As John Lennon said, Ghandi and King were for peace, and they were killed. We can add John Lennon to their company. It's sad when those people who believe in peace and love are killed by those who feel they will benefit from destroying others lives and countries.

Tears come to my eyes each time I hear of another young man killed or mangled, physically and emotionally, in the war. Yes, I'm a Peacenik. But I still don't say near enough.