Woodstock CT Café

From Diane

RE: Obama’s, “You can’t have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience,” is a strawman. No one is advocating for either 100% security or 100% privacy with 0% inconvenience.

What Edward Snowden demonstrated quite adequately is that the balance between security and privacy is so grotesquely skewed that the very principles of our founding are being trampled by an increasingly police state. Start with what is labeled as Secret and Top Secret. Bradley Manning revealed a lot of “Secret and Top Secret” communications but the outstanding characteristic of most of it is that it is embarrassing to US government officials. It wasn’t sensitive data. It wasn’t the names of secret CIA operatives (like the vindictive Cheney, et al, revealed in 2003). It was embarrassing and a lot of the data revealed actions that are international CRIMES against civilian populations by US troops and their commanders. Has the US moved to prosecute ANY of those high-ranking military criminals? No. But hey, let’s put a lowly private away for life. That should stop others from making similar revelations. Did you know that in Feb, 2013, Pvt Manning plead guilty to 10 charges which had the offer been accepted would have resulted in his serving 20 years in federal prison but the Army refused the deal, prefering to try for a life sentence? And remember. His “crime” wasn’t compromising US security. It was embarrassing people whose communications were so far from “secret” as to be ludicrous and exposing criminal violations by our US military. In my book, those aren’t crimes that Manning should go to jail for. He is a whistleblower, pure and simple, and the Army didn’t like being revealed as murderers and liars.

According to Snowden himself he “had full access to the full rosters of everyone working at the NSA, the entire intelligence community, and undercover assets all around the world … I, sitting at my desk, certainly have the authorities to wiretap anyone – from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President.” Yet what did he reveal?

1) That the US government, without obtaining any warrants, ROUTINELY collects phone logs of millions of Americans who have no link to terrorism.
2) The NSA sweeps and keeps massive amounts of user data and communications from Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Skype.
3) There exists an NSA tracking program called “Boundless Informant” which in March, 2013, alone collected over 97 billion pieces of information from computer networks worldwide, 3 billion of which came from US-based networks.
4) Both James Clapper, Obama’s director of National Intelligence and General Keith Alexander, director of the NSA lied to Congress when they stated multiple times, in Congressional hearings, that the NSA does not collect ANY TYPE OF DATA on hundreds of millions of Americans [emphasis mine] and that the NSA does not have the capability to intercept e-mails and other online communications here in the United States.
5) He, Snowden said, “If I wanted to see your emails or your wife’s phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.”

So who is Edward Snowden? He is another whistleblower. A man who gave up his career and who could well be on Obama’s hit list, to tell us Americans how their government is spying on each and every one of us.

I think they are both heroes and that it is a travesty that either of them should be in a position to spend the rest of their lives in prison.

From LibDem

Understand that my initial statement was an emotional response to what I had been feeling on Memorial Day. It began at my little cemetery service here in Woodstock where I go annually to “memorialize” those who have died. The Boy Scouts carry the flags, the vets line up, a small group of people young and old gather in a circle, a minister delivers a small sermon, then leads us all in singing God Bless America. The guns are fired and the trumpet blows. There is a nice peaceful breeze. I gaze at the tombstone of my old West Woodstock librarian, enjoying this little piece of Americana tradition.

When the service ends, I talk with my neighbors. One was stationed in Germany during the Vietnam War. I thank him for his service. His wife is passing out little red, white and blue flower pins. Another neighbor was the wife of a WWII vet. She is getting older now and needs a lot of help. I admire her for making it to this service every year. But mostly everyone is quiet and solemn. The men salute the vets. The procession leaves for the school bus that Becki used to drive and they leave for the next cemetery.

Despite the relative pleasantry of the service, I leave alone. I feel a disconnect from it all and wonder if I will be able to continue this tradition. I was disturbed by the singing of God Bless America, the audacity of the preacher, and wondered if others in America, who are not Christian, feel the same way. I was disturbed by the blind patriotism of it all. The saluting, the militarization of the ceremony. What about my librarian who died? She wasn’t military, yet she was a hero in our community? I was disturbed by the presence of the Boy Scouts. Young recruits into a conservative movement that has alienates gays.

While it all seemed so natural, so pleasant, so American, like apple pie, there was something underneath it all that made my skin crawl. Maybe its just me, so I talked to my wife about how I felt. She made the good point of noting that no one else in Woodstock rises to re-create these ceremonies, so leave it alone unless you are willing to change it. Let people have their god and their patriotism. If you don’t like it, don’t go.

But of course my feelings brewed and until the steam blew out onto the Cafe. I don’t regret my statements, but in many ways I still feel as alienated as I did on Memorial Day, realizing that I live in a country where culturally I feel as if I don’t belong any more.

From Diane

Do you know who Andy Borowitz is? He writes satire for the New Yorker. The following is the lead in to a story that appeared today in the online San Jose Mercury News and I SWEAR Andy couldn’t possibly have done better:

07-Jun-2013
SAN JOSE — President Obama on Friday defended his administration’s mass collection of telephone and Internet records, saying it’s thoroughly overseen by Congress and judges and strikes the right balance between security and privacy.”

“OVERSEEN BY CONGRESS AND JUDGES”???? That is HILARIOUS! Except, oh crap. The prez wasn’t joking.

Speaking at the SJ Fairmont Hotel, Obama went on, “When I came into this office, I made two commitments that are more important than any commitment I make: number one to keep the American people safe, and number two to uphold the Constitution… You can’t have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience. We’re going to have to make some choices as a society.” Is that freaking scary or WHAT!! “I think that on balance, we have established a policy and a procedure that the American people should feel comfortable with.”

Well, I sure am not comfortable with it.

“With respect to the Internet and emails, this does not apply to U.S. citizens and it does not apply to people living in the United States,” Obama said.

According to the Mercury News, “News broke this week that the National Security Agency has obtained massive data on Verizon telephone customers. The Washington Post reported the National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time. “

Does that sound like they are NOT snarfing up communications by Americans?

The excuse that we need these police state tactics to protect us from terrorists is junk. They have been in place since Bush and look how well they stopped the Boston Marathon bombing. I’d rather take the 1 in 100 million chances of being near a terrorist bombing than the 1 in 1 chance of having my emails confiscated by a United States government gone rogue.

It is SO past time to repeal the unconstitutional Patriot Act.

From Teacher’s point of View

From Anonymous with a TIN FOIL HAT

From Peter

I think there are very clear reasons why individuals pick different career paths and neither is really concerned with the other. I would think that people who join the armed forces are looking for a job, a career, education or to leave a small town because of a pregnant girl friend (just kidding). For many this gives them hope for the future and probably a sense of belonging. When anyone is stepping out into the world he or she hopes for some sort of security. In my case, the bar was not set very high; I knew I needed to learn a trade. It takes a lot to commit to any field of endeavor. Anyone heading for a civilian career has fears for success whether you are a research scientist, roofer, fisherman, tree surgeon or fireman. No field one chooses or ends up in for what ever reason should be considered better or worse. Sometimes things just fit better for one than another. A soldier who climbs the ranks can be proud of his or her achievements like a master carpenter who should be proud of his or her skills. Anyone working a job of any sort is contributing to the rest in a Democracy. I honestly believe that if you work hard at what you do and try your best you live with honor, things will work out. You can see it any day.  Just eating out when someone gives you great service you know they have respect for themselves because they take pride in what they do. I can’t think of anyone I’ve known who wouldn’t help in a crisis, uniform or not, and every once in awhile you find a hero.

From Formerly A Student

Good news! CT passes a GMO labeling mandate — sort of. According to the sponsors, it contains strong, effective language. The catch is that we need four other states to pass similar laws before ours takes effect; of these, the total population exceeding 20 million according to the 2010 census and one must border CT. How easy will this be to accomplish? We’ll see. Allegedly, this clause was inserted because of Monsanto’s threats to sue any legislators who would enact GMO labeling laws.

The bill even received a favorable 134-3 vote from the House, and a unanimous vote from the Senate.

This should act as encouragement for other states considering GMO labeling and spark a new wave of interest in the subject.

Goodness always does prevail.

The following link provides information on how to contact our legislators to thank them for the service they have done us:

GMO Free CT

I have yet to figure out whether or not Mike Alberts supported this. It’ll be interesting to see the 3 Representatives who opposed it.

From Dean

I have taken your posts that yes are denigrating to people in the military very personally. I recently had two friends that just got home from Afghanistan, two uncles who served in Vietnam, and two other uncles that served in the Korean War. Never mind all of the other dedicated patriots, some of the best people that I know, have served in Afghanistan and Iraq. When you say that you are tired of hearing people say thanks to those people on Memorial Day, well that is disgusting. And the way that you characterized people serving in the military as either fools or suckers is disgusting.

Addressing your points:

1) I agree, most people that do not join the military are not cowards. However, those that would never serve and expect the “fools and suckers” to do their dirty business for them are. And the point that they don’t want to forego their rights just points to another sacrifice that our soldiers have to go through to serve people like you.

2) Sacrificing lives and limbs is not the only standard, the fact is that every soldier understands that their job has much, much greater personal risk of any other civilian job. The fact is they signed up, voluntarily, to take those risks for their country. I know that your type doesn’t understand and never will understand. Luckily for you there are some that do. How many people do you know in the military? I have known hundreds and are still close friends with several after more than 20 years. It is amazing to me how you think that you know what people’s motivations are that you do not know at all.

Your other points:

1) Agreed, not all soldiers are. Some are criminals for example. The recruiting process isn’t perfect. But most are more heroic than the average citizen who do their job and go home every day and make no real sacrifices.

2) I am going to disregard your second point, it is so inflammatory that you think that those of us that served have somehow been hoodwinked because we do not have your despicable morals.

3) What sacrifice for our country is equal to what we ask of our soldiers that our average citizens can perform? I keep on bringing up this point but you can never explain how the average person sacrifices for their country. Oh, that is right, you had to pay for your own grad school.

4) Right. Unfortunately, my guess is that the first thing that you would cut if you were in charge is military salaries so that less people would be suckered into joining. You would be doing them a favor right? More military families on food stamps, why not?

I give up, LD, I am sorry that you have to hear people say thanks to soldiers on Memorial Day. We should give thanks instead to over-educated arrogant pissants for telling us how dumb those soldiers are when they could just sit at home and let some other sucker serve. We can call it xxxhole day. OK?

“We take this matter seriously and have started our own investigation. Preliminarily, it does not appear that the action taken by the flight crew was justified.” – Statement from Rabbi Seth Linfield, executive director of the Yeshiva of Flatbush school in Brooklyn, after 100 students were kicked off an AirTran flight before the plane took off. The airline and crew said the students weren’t following orders by not staying seated and not turning off their mobile devices when asked to, but school officials said only a few students initially didn’t listen but did so and that the crew overreacted. The students were headed to a Six Flags park.”

From John

Finding this article in the Norwich Bull forces me to recount my similar experience. I was on a plane from the Washington area to Chicago back in the 1980s. I was near the front of the ecomony cabin with about 30 students from Hawthorn High in Chicago. They were returning from a trip to Washington. As we waited to take off I began to notice that the student across the aisle from me and seemingly all the students behind me were unruly. We took off and the decibles and profanities from the rabble got higher and higher by half-way through the flight. The wise-ass kid across the aisle from me began whipping the kid sitting behind me with his headphone wire. I found myself ducking from the flying whip as it passed by my head. I could not understand why the brauny steward and the stewardess just watched, bug-eyed, from the entrance into first class. Instinctively, without turning my head I reached up with my right hand and the kid deposited the whip into my hand like a perfect handoff. He looked at me with a genuinely startled expression and muttered something stupid. I got up with my briefcase and computer and walked up to first class. As I passed the steward and stewardess, I handed the whip to one of them saying “You should have this.” I sat down in an empty aisle front row of first class. The stewardess came to me and said “You can’t do this.” I had already buckled myself in and told her that I am not going back there. She left and went into the pilots’ cabin. After she left, someone behind me said “You did the right thing!” After what seemed like a very long time, the stewardess came out from her conference with the pilot and told me that I would be met by an “official” at the gate. I said that that would be fine with me. When we docked, I was first out the door. I saw the “official” down the gangplanck  and prepared myself for arrest. When I walked up to him, I was controlled though livid. I explained what we had all been through and the lack of action by the staff. Meanwhile, he was holding up both hands and saying “I know. I know. You are allright.”  Then I moved on to my connection with no remorse.

From LibDem

1- Not everyone joins the military. This doesn’t mean they are cowards. This doesn’t mean they don’t love their country. This doesn’t mean they do not sacrifice for their country. It doesn’t mean that they are willingly hiding behind the military. It might mean that they do not trust the judgement of their government based on a long history of irresponsibility and imperialism. It might mean they are not in favor of killing or committing acts of violence. It might mean that they cannot be accepted into the military for a number of factors (age, health, sexual orientation). It might mean that they are unwilling to forgo some of their rights when joining the military. These are all very real and educated reasons for not joining the military and they should be respected.

2. Not all soldiers are heroes. Not all of them have sacrificed their lives, their limbs, or their physical/mental health. Some soldiers never see active combat. Many are involved in mundane low stress activities. Some
join the service because they are desperate. They need a job, benefits, schooling, experience, travel. Some join because they are ignorant about what military service involves or about the military history of U.S. Some join the military because they have glamorized it and are delusional about the role of the soldier. But all them them make the decision to join and bear some responsibility for what follows.

Based in these two points, I have formed the following personal opinions:

1- Not all soldiers are worthy of eternal praise for sacrifice, heroism or protecting my freedom.

2- The glorification of soldiers or the extreme patriotic genuflection to a military is culturally dangerous. Impressionable young men and women, like yourself so it seems, can be led into something they may not have bargained for or later regret. Or they can find themselves injured or killed for a mission that probably wasn’t worth it. Its no wonder that the suicide rate amongst vets is so high. We do a disservice to our children when we place athletes and soldiers on a higher pedestal than teachers, nurses, doctors, scientists, etc.

3- Sacrifice for our country can be done with less personal risk and often greater satisfaction in a number of civilian activities or jobs.

4- All workers, civilian or military, should be well compensated, well respected and well protected.

From Kevin

Of course soldiers are part of the electorate (though they are not allowed to actively participate in the electoral process much more than by simply voting). My point being that we are too and we cannot ignore our role in what we have created. There are some very valid reasons why we need a military and that means someone has to do it.

You may give in to the woe is me, we can’t change anything argument but history doesn’t support that. Before there was no possibility of gay marriage and even a big backlash, but here it comes. We will never end the pointless war on drugs but slowly marijuana is decriminalized. We’ll never try to create legislation to protect equal rights for woman, but we did it. No civil rights protections for minorities will ever happen, separate but equal, but that changed too. We’ll never allow woman to have the right to vote, but that happened. We can never get any rights for workers, yup that one too. We’ll never free the slaves, OK that one required a war. In each and every case the people started out against the idea and it required a great deal of effort and personal sacrifice by the people involved but you know what? Over time things changed. So I don’t buy the argument that the people can’t change attitudes over time (which of course finds its way into government and into our laws). Maybe I’m just optimistic.

As far as what makes into the decision of a young person to join the military, I think I’ve got a pretty good idea having enlisted myself at 17. The recruiter didn’t play much of a role, I was planning on joining long before I met him. I don’t think he did anything wrong with my enlistment, but I can’t speak to the experiences of others. I’m sure like anything else with a quota attached, you can get some good and bad results to achieve that quota (which is one of the many things that makes me leery of tying teacher performance too closely with things like test scores).

The reasons why people join the military are extremely varied and I don’t think you can pin it to any one thing. I suppose some might want to become Captain America but I didn’t encounter a lot of those. One soldier I do remember was Macheko (probably a really bad spelling of his name, sorry that was over 25 years ago). He escaped Czechoslovakia when it was part of the iron curtain. He didn’t join for glory, for revenge, or even to get money for college. It may seem counter intuitive but he joined the US military to feel safe from his old government that he worried might coming knocking at his door at 2:00 AM even while living in the US. He certainly wasn’t looking to be Captain America, he was looking to feel safe. Interestingly enough I do think there are a sizable portion who join and stay for a sense of family, belonging and once again counter-intuitively a sense of security. But Dean is also right that for many there is pride in service too.

As far as resenting the sitting on the sofa comment, for the vast, and I mean vast, majority of Americans that’s exactly what it works out to. That doesn’t make them cowards but I don’t think it is anything to be proud of either. Many of our citizens can’t even be bothered to vote. I don’t know the particulars of your personal story, for I know you spent years helping malaria victims at great personal risk. If so, kudos to you and thank you. However, if you’re like many Americans you don’t vote (though I suspect you most certainly do), maybe you have been involved in politics at some level and some charity and if so you’ve done a lot more than most. But if that’s your experience then I get what Dean is saying, you really have no idea what’s involved and what’s being given up. I’m not trying to be mean but based on my experiences that is my opinion on that (and you know what they say about those).

Thanks, Kevin

From John

February 12, 1943
Dear Pablo:

Hope you received the cot in time, tho I’m afraid you didn’t.

This is but a note to say that the bad news has finally come thru. I’m to be run thru the mill at Hartford on March 4, and if I’m taken – which I probably will be, of course – I’ll probably have a week of grace before the vortex. All I hope is that you have not had any bad news. One of us is enough to offer up to the infernal machine, and nothing will please me more than to know that the stream of your life – which has depended as much on that odd sort of continuity not clear to others but so clear to us – will not have been diverted into the mailstrom. This I mean very sincerely, and cursed be those who resent the freedom of their fellows whom chance has spared, or will have spared!

But we shall curse together some evening, if you will vouchsafe us another so pleasant one as your guests. Our plans are to be in the city for a few days between the 22nd and 26th, but I’ll drop you a more exact note later. Next week we shall go to Stowe VT, to ski and stand on top of the mountains, providing all goes well. Then New York.
…
Love, Boyce(and Stella)
P.S. – Special love from me to Chubby (my pregnant mother) – Boyce

March 4, 1943
Dear Pablo:

You’d better be a fortune-teller, Pablo. I was rejected. The details are rather confused – I have, they discovered, a slight hernia (that pain in my side I mentioned to you) which, after deliberation, they decided wasn’t enough in itself to reject me. I am not to know exactly why I was rejected until the draft board lets me know. Also, I won’t know until then my new classification – in other words, whether it will be 4-F. The general reason may be “psychologically unfit”, tho that’s a guess. Anyhow, when I got to the psychiatrist, I was in much the same sort of manic-depressive mood in which I left you – after such a pleasant evening – on Monday. I all but broke down, and perhaps the doctor perceived that I might begin to “prance” – like Heyst (character in Joseph Conrad’s “Victory”) – if I was taken, and perhaps run-amuck. For that was honestly enough, my mood. I begin to come to the final crossroads. If I am to be finally caught in, not merely the Army, but the whirling assemby-line of this mad, world-wide ordeal of industrialism and mechanization of the soul, I am through. Death were then no horror, but a key to peace. But more of this later, when we come into the city, tho now with this change, we shan’t be in immediately. By the way, if you do wait for the draft, be sure to tell the doctor, earnestly, about your nervous breakdown. But we shall see you before then.

Yours with love, and thanks for the evening. Boyce (and Stella)

These letters were written to my father, Pablo (Peter). My parents were living in Greenwich Village at the time. Boyce and Stella were living in what became my home town, Rowayton CT. In these letters, Boyce portrayed himself honestly. I found these letters and 30 more, in my parent’s last year of life. I asked my mother about Boyce and she told me that Boyce (and Stella) were very neurotic; my father was suffering from senile dementia and not able to reveal more to me about Boyce. He was my father’s best friend throughout the 1930s and early 1940s. In the picture taken in 1946 at our front door in Rowayton CT, Boyce is on the right next to my uncle John Leavitt, a true war hero who enlisted in the RAF to “fight the Nazis”.

Boyce is Boyce Eakin, an aspiring writer who published “Prairies” in an issue of the New Mexico Quarterly Review in August 1941. This story was re-published in “Best American Short Stories of 1942” [ed. Martha Foley, Houghton Mifflin 1942] along with short stories by well know authors including John Steinbeck. Boyce, who was a chain smoker, succumbed to lung cancer in 1957. I found Boyce’s obit in the NYTimes but was disappointed when I purchased it. There was little said about Boyce’s life and no mention of Stella. It just mentioned that he was a teacher at Darien High School and that he was an aspiring writer.

From Dean

Don’t lecture me that it is not all glory and heroism; of course it isn’t, LD. It can really suck, and you have no comprehension as to how badly it can suck because you don’t know anything about it. I am pissed because you mock soldiers by calling them “ignorant, desperate or delusional” and are actually put out of your way on Memorial Day by people giving thanks. You are a self centered punk.

A couple of more specific answers for the questions raised by LD for the more reasonable, free thinking people.

1) Yes, I have no problems with my child enlisting in combat arms with the exception of worrying about them. I would lay out to them exactly what that means and they can make a decision. The option laid out though is a false choice. No soldier can decide whether a war is justified or not, they have to follow the direction of the President elected by the people. If you want to give them a choice we will soon dissolve into a military dictatorship where the military calls the shots.

2) In WWII which LD describes as our one justified war, there were tens of thousands of deserters and draft dodgers. I read one book that said that by the closing months of WWII there were 50,000 roaming western europe. Those people decided that the war wasn’t worth it, whether it was because of the military industrial complex or whatever. They clearly had LDs attitude, luckily they were protected by the few million that decided to do their mission. My point is that the only way this works is that the people follow their constitutional obligations. It is impossible to decide at the time whether the war is righteous, even in WWII, there were people that decided that the war wasnt righteous. That is why the people elect a president and congress and they decide, the moment you get away from that you are in trouble.

3) Most soldiers are more heroic than most everyone else. Why? Heroism requires some significant personal sacrifice, like putting life and limb on the line, like being separated from loved ones for year or more (even in peace time, for months at a time). I am an engineer, I design things that contribute to society. I am not a hero, I have not sacrificed a thing, I make a pretty good salary and come home to my family and house every night. LD, you are delusional if you think that you have given as much as these people, once again no clue.

4) Soldiers were absolutely essential for this country to be successful. Luckily, this country is not full of LDs because we would never have fought our war of independence, we would be 2, 5, 50, 100 separate countries by now, the world would be dominated and under slavery by Germans, Japanese, Soviets… Soldiers have created the conditions that have allowed all of the other people in this country to be successful. Many have given their physical or mental lives to allow this to happen.

5) Believing that our soldiers deserve praise not derision does not make a militarist. Most soldiers and veterans hate wars because they are the only ones that know what it means. LD has no clue because he cant even appreciate the sacrifices they make. Militarists almost always are people who have never served a day in their lives…chickenhawks…like LD.

This country would not nowhere be as great as it is if every person had LDs attitude of soldiers are losers and suckers and dont deserve praise.

People like LD “use” soldiers, they want to look down on them, but in reality they need to hide behind them. This doesn’t apply to most people who have never served, only to people like LD who would never serve his fellow countrymen or allow anyone in his family to serve. He may justify it in his brain somehow, it is likely more about cowardice and the willingness to let someone else always do the dirty work.

From Newcomer

I think it’s your (Libdem) labeling of the average citizen-soldier as “ignorant, delusional, and desperate” that other readers are finding off-putting, because it feels like you are looking down on such people as someone who is above the fray in such a matter. What you describe (and seem to regard with disdain) as “ignorance”, I see as a matter of trust.

As Americans, in general, we trust (or used to trust, I think today more of us are more skeptical of our government than our fellow Americans in generations past) we trust that our government is operating in our best interest rather than its own (or of those few powerful and wealthy elite who control it). So if there is a whole nation full of well-meaning citizens who believe their government when it tells them their service is needed to defend against some threat, they answer the call dutifully and in good faith. That they are ready and willing to surrender their life for their fellow citizens is honorable. And so we honor them and their service. How are they to know what goes on behind the scenes at the highest levels? Ususally, such information isn’t available to the public until years later.

I’ll give you an example. I have a cousin who is today in his 80′s. In the 1940′s, he was in an ivy league college studying physics and minding his business. Unbeknownst to him, the FBI was actively tracking down and interviewing his family, neighbors, friends, co-workers – anyone who knew him and had personal info about him. Neither they (those who knew him) nor he had any idea why. Then one day he was (I guess you’d say) drafted, but it was more like he was given a summons by the War Dept. of his government. He was told he would be leaving school and entering the military as a physicist. He wasn’t told what he would be working on or why; just that it would be physics and that it was necessary for the war effort. Next thing you know, he found himself in New York, and then in Oak Ridge, TN. He worked in a big barracks, working on a segment of a formula. He knew the name of this work he had been drafted to do was called the Manhattan Project, but had no idea what that would turn out to be, nor how it would be used until it was revealed to the world.

We all know the death and destruction that resulted. But he, and I’m sure the hundreds of others in the same position as he had been, did not volunteer to develop this weapon of mass destruction. And once they were serving, the rank and file still did not know what their work on a little segment of a formula would lead to. They served honorably and in good faith.

Now, you can hold some of the leaders of your government at that time in disdain if you like, that’s if you disagree with what they were trying to accomplish through their war effort, and/or how they went about it. But (IMHO) you can’t apply that same disdain to the rank and file who answered the call to serve, voluntarily or otherwise. They did what their country asked of them for what they were told was a noble cause,.

In Christian circles, you’ll occasionally hear the phrase, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” I think that sort of mentality applies in this situation as well. Love the soldier, hate the war, not the war-monger.

From Non-Woodstocker

I believe that it is you (Libdem) who are delusional when you assert that anyone pursuing a career in the military is either ignorant, delusional or desperate. Diane is spot on when she cites the fact that those who join more often than not do so with noble purpose, they are young idealistic men and women (though their idealism may differ from your kumbaya fantasy). They cannot be held responsible for the actions of our military leaders and politicians, and I do agree that those actions are indeed often far less than noble, so I am certainly not a big fan of the military industrial complex, but to disparage decent young men the way you have done is completely unfair and seems almost to border on a hatred, very sad from my point of view.

I have a 30 year old nephew who joined the Air Force 10 years ago, leaving his mudane job at a Potato chip factory on the cape. He joined specifically in the hope of becoming a member of the USAF Special Forces SERE team. These are men highly trained in Search, Evade, Rescue and Escape tactics whose primary mission is to save lives. He was one of 1000 applicants to the SERE school that year, 100 qualified, FOUR graduated and he was at the top of his class. He is now an instructor in that same program and loves what he does. He is essentially A-political, but he spends his days instructing Officers, Pilots, airmen, Navy Seals, Army Rangers and a host of other members of the Armed Forces in the skills they might need to survive. He is a terrific young man, a true gentleman, a good teacher, leader and yes soldier. He is one of countless honorable young men who see their military service not as chance to further the aims of George Bush or Barak Obama, but as an opportunity to help people, save lives and protect his freinds and neighbors and probably even those morons who are ignorant enough to disparage his motivation and service without ever even knowing him.

LibDem, maybe you are simply trying to get a rise out of folks like me with what you said, and in that case you have succeeded, your comments might be the most hateful and shameful thing I have ever read on this board. For the record, I consider myself fairly anti-war. I have great difficulty with our sending young men and women to die in some god forsaken desert for people who hate us, if it were up to me, I would bring all our troops home and have them building America and guarding our borders, but I can never sit quiet and allow someone to castigate brave, idealistic young men and women who simply want to do something with their lives, heartless, shameful and ignorant!

From Peter

Today, I wonder how the Vietnamese think of the war? To Americans it’s still a stone in our collective shoe. Maybe that’s because we lost. Have they moved on never really looking back? My hero of Vietnam was a local boy, Will. I won’t say his last name because he may not want it out there; but he’s my hero because he knew what was right for him at the time while most simply did what they were told to do. He was a conscientious objector. Because of this he was called a coward by his father and actually went to jail for refusing to go to a war he thought was wrong. I personally wasn’t smart enough to truly understand Will’s conviction and knowledge of the situation at hand. For those who fought I would say they answered a calling from their leaders and did what they thought was responsible. There is no shame in that and there is no shame in Will’s own personal war.

I grew up living in the North. I’ve always thought of the United States as just one beautiful country. I don’t think of the civil war that often but when I do I enjoy learning its history. I’ve been to many civil war battle areas and seen the horror of what happened. Antietam is always hard to believe. I’ve been living in the South for many years and, believe it or not, you feel like the Civil war is just on hold at times. It’s as though there is more to be done. To me it is actually a little funny. I’m not laughing at my Southern brothers and sisters but the only thing I can come up with is that the south lost and some are unwilling to give up. Most people, I think, don’t understand that we both lost – the North and the South. And we both won because the solution was the best for all.