Veteran's-We are not a Reality Show

The Vietnam War kept my cousin. It also kept a few friends of mine from high school and a boyfriend who just disappeared after he returned from his draft stint.
I spent two years in Germany working huge mainframe computers, eventually a short stint in Military Intelligence.
The Vietnam War is famous -our country turned on many of the men who returned from that hellhole war. Men who did not want to be there in the first place. People called them baby killers, spit on them. Men returned to the states and many have spent the rest of their lives fighting with those demons that came back with them-the ones in their minds. Vietnam Vets have never really been honored for the sacrifices they made. This was a not a war anyone but politicians wanted. It took years of shouting for the government to listen to the American people.

Starting with Bush, no pretending was necessary-Donald Rumsfeld understaffed the Iraqi invasion and George Bush pretended it was over months after the intial invasion.
Now we have men fighting in two countries oversears, dying in two countries, overseas, and I ask why??

Don't give me the history garbage of military strategy, how important it is to "fight" for democracy. Stand up for others..
Our imposition of our own ideals is every bit as repressive and invasive as any dictatorial regime.
The call for Manifest Destiny is the biggest farce of all-who chose us? We did!

While we yell about other countries violating humans rights we have become a nation that locks teen agers up for life, uses the death penalty and have violated human rights with arrest and imprisonment without charges, a right to an attorney or the ability to face accusers. George Bush started prisons in other countries in which CIA operatives would abduct "suspects" from a country and take them to the prisons.

If we aren't Stalinesque in our approach to law enforcement, we sure are a story right out of Twilight Zone.

The countries in blue are those that do not use the death penalty. Those in green have laws on the books but do not use it. Those in the dark red not only use it but will kill individuals under the age of 21.
If you notice most civilized countries do not use the death penalty.

Our boys are fighting this war. Our boys, mostly poor,of color. They go to war because it is all they know to do, and they hope to be recognized with honor.
It is very much like having a parent who never shows love. Young men, disenfranchised, unemployed, mainly men of color, looking for the approval of a nation which will never recognize the sacrifices.
Sadly, the approval doesn't seem to come. Many die.
I have been around long enough to watch one to many wars. There is no justifiable reason to kill in this civilized world. Not one.
Our young men, mostly boys when recruited, deserve better.. They desrve a promise and a hope from us, that we, as Americans will do right by our boys

But we don't. do we? Our country is so full of itself and our  ability to top another's "suffering" we don't get out of our "National narcissism" to recognize the sacrifices made by our men and women in the Armed Forces.
President Obama,
keep showing the body bags. Those dead soldiers are mama's little boys, all grown up, they  are husbands and daddies, brother, sister, cousin, niece, nephew and boyfriend, loved dearly.
Don't allow our country to keep the consequences of these deadly wars hidden.
War isn't part reality show.
It is reality. Real suffering, loss and pain. It is "real reality"
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