For you kids out there who weren't around then, the central character of the movie Born on the Fourth of July was Ron Kovic, who with John Kerry and two friends named Hubbard and Muller [?] founded an organisation called V.V.A.W., Viet Nam Veterans Against the War .... Kerry split with them a short time later as some members were taking it in a whacko leftie direction, however in the meantime they organised an event called the Winter Soldiers hearings - lists.village.virginia.edu
Viet Nam was a huge mistake for the US, massive, bloody, costly, divisive ... often you'll see casualties numbered at something above 58,000, however that figure ignores vietnamese dead and maimed of 3,000,000 or so, because you see, the war was being held in their country, for the most part, it was held in Cambodia and Laos too .... one of the slogans of the time was, What if they held a war and nobody came? ... problem was though, people did come, as they were ordered to come .... now before you start thinking, what bunch of partisan dickheads would get the US mired in occupation of hostile territory on the other side of the planet, you need to know this - it was a completely bipartisan effort ...... two major screwups went into the mix, first Truman the democrat traded off the independence aspirations of the vietnamese to the french in 1945, and let de Gaulle try to recolonise the place after the viets had helped to run the japanese out ..... second, in 1954 Eisenhower the republican promised 1956 elections, then when 1956 came he went back on his word, decreed that there be no elections ..... there's more to the story, couple of pet dictators, a John Wayne movie, many shiploads of machine-gun ammunition, body bags, helicopters, napalm, various styles of warmaking , it ends with Nixon declaring 'peace with honour' and pulling the troops out ..... after which those big bad commie viets had a brief war with the big bad commie red chinese, imagine that, it's like a domino fell backward or something, eh
Aaaanyway, Kerry and a very few like him came back and told it like it was .... and that took guts, a lot of guts, to stand up against authority in those days, people had been shot demonstrating, thousands arrested .... eventually the tide of popular opinion was changed, as there was punctured that nice comfy patriotic myth of Our Soldiers being always and only on the side of Truth Beauty and Justice, forever winning, invulnerable and sainted heroes ... turned out they were human beings, real life wasn't much like a John Wayne movie after all, especially when men are sent into a hell where foreign armies had no business being ..... some will insist still that not enough peasants were machine-gunned, not enough hooches burned, that if only more rice paddies had been destroyed the war would have been 'won' .... this is called the We Must Destroy The Village To Save It theory .... well kids, not everybody felt this way, a fact for which many a village on this globe is thankful .... here's Country Joe on the issue -
Well, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
Yeah, he's got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Vietnam
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
Gonna have a whole lotta fun.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Yeah, come on Wall Street, don't be slow,
Why man, this is war au-go-go
There's plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of its trade,
Just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
They drop it on the Viet Cong.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Well, come on generals, let's move fast;
Your big chance has come at last.
Now you can go out and get those reds
'Cause the only good commie is the one that's dead
And you know that peace can only be won
When we've blown 'em all to kingdom come.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to Vietnam.
Come on fathers, and don't hesitate
To send your sons off before it's too late.
You can be the first ones in your block
To have your boy come home in a box.
And it's one, two, three
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
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