Tim O'Brien speaks out...
[Tim O'Brien is the author of several critically acclaimed novels about the Vietnam War, including Going After Cacciato and The Things They Carried.]
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Originally published October 10, 2002
The Baltimore Sun
One thing that strikes me, as a veteran of Vietnam, is how our country so often satanizes its latest "enemy," whether it be Tojo or Ho Chi Minh or Geronimo or Sitting Bull or bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. Those with whom we have quarrels are always "evil," and America is always unsullied and righteous.
It strikes me, too, that so few of those Americans who scream for war are actually showing up at the recruiting stations. Odd thing. Why aren't they aboard troop ships? Why aren't they dispatching their sons and daughters and wives and husbands to lead the assault on Baghdad? Why aren't these bellicose, let's-go-kill-'em folks putting their own bodies where their rhetoric is? It's an old, disgusting story.
War, war, war -- but let somebody else do the dying. There are always such wonderful reasons for war. But when someone actually points a weapon at you, or when you point a weapon at someone else, a very desperate, last-instant thought appears: Hey, for God's sake, let's try something else.
Copyright © 2002, The Baltimore Sun
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