Being a Vietnam vet during the last days of American ground troops what I saw mostly was a job almost done. I was positioned on different artillery firebases along the north and central coastal areas, the land in control by the Americans and the South Vietnamese. Though the spring offensive of 1972 spearheaded toward us from the north and out west toward the ARVN, the American firepower did halt the advance. Then they left us alone so we would leave. Later, watching the fall of Saigon, I wondered how they had bungled this war.
I have never been a world traveler since and my world view has been from an armchair. What I have experienced is the cost of everything takes most of my average paycheck. What I have seen and read is that it seems that men have become richer than what they need to be and people poorer that what they ought to be. And that war has never ceased.
I have also never been a policy maker nor ever will be but the events of 9/11 made me wonder again how they let this happened. Like the military high command ignoring the signs coming from the field soldiers of the buildup to the Tet offensive, the government command once again seemed to have blinders on from the field warnings terrorist activities; much less the earlier Trade center bombing and the verbal threats against those buildings. I am old enough to know that mistakes can still be made and that human error can shape events but at this scale I think I know what my parent's generation felt after Pearl Harbor: vulnerable. War again seemed to be the only course.
Yet from the start the reaction to Afghanistan was directed for the enemy that caused the slaughter of the innocents and the speed of the takeover astounding. In my eyes and of the world America had the right to go into that country and aim for the terrorists. Unfortunately we are dealing with a well trained force that for a decade hid from a large Russian army.
I have never been a world traveler since and my world view has been from an armchair. What I have experienced is the cost of everything takes most of my average paycheck. What I have seen and read is that it seems that men have become richer than what they need to be and people poorer that what they ought to be. And that war has never ceased.
I have also never been a policy maker nor ever will be but the events of 9/11 made me wonder again how they let this happened. Like the military high command ignoring the signs coming from the field soldiers of the buildup to the Tet offensive, the government command once again seemed to have blinders on from the field warnings terrorist activities; much less the earlier Trade center bombing and the verbal threats against those buildings. I am old enough to know that mistakes can still be made and that human error can shape events but at this scale I think I know what my parent's generation felt after Pearl Harbor: vulnerable. War again seemed to be the only course.
Yet from the start the reaction to Afghanistan was directed for the enemy that caused the slaughter of the innocents and the speed of the takeover astounding. In my eyes and of the world America had the right to go into that country and aim for the terrorists. Unfortunately we are dealing with a well trained force that for a decade hid from a large Russian army.
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