Back to the Future.
Men who have lived in wars are branded by them.
In 1884 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a Civil War veteran and great Supreme Court Justice, gave a Memorial Day speech and said, in part, "...Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing..." *
My war was Vietnam, a controversial one. It is fashionable among the fashionables to condemn that war, as if any war is pure good. But some things are worth fighting for, if we are to be morally solvent.
The late John Updike wrote this about the war in Vietman in 1966, after the full-scale American intervention was underway. It has something to say to us today, too, about surrendering to a world run by terrorists.
“...Like most Americans I am uncomfortable about our military adventure in South Vietnam; but in honesty I wonder how much of the discomfort has to do with its high cost, in lives and money, and how much with its moral legitimacy. I do not believe that the Vietcong and Ho Chi Minh have a moral edge over us, nor do I believe that great powers can always avoid using their power.
"I am for our intervention if it does some good -- specifically, if it enables the people of South Vietnam to seek their own political future. It is absurd to suggest that a village in the grip of guerrillas has freely chosen, or that we owe it to history to bow before a wave of the future engineered by terrorists. The crying need is for genuine elections whereby the South Vietnamese can express their will. If their will is for Communism, we should pick up our chips and leave. Until such a will is expressed, and as long as no willingness to negotiate is shown by the other side, I do not see that we can abdicate our burdensome position in South Vietnam."
* For the whole O.W. Holmes, Jr. speech, see
http://people.virginia.edu/~mmd5f/memorial.htm
In 1884 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a Civil War veteran and great Supreme Court Justice, gave a Memorial Day speech and said, in part, "...Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing..." *
My war was Vietnam, a controversial one. It is fashionable among the fashionables to condemn that war, as if any war is pure good. But some things are worth fighting for, if we are to be morally solvent.
The late John Updike wrote this about the war in Vietman in 1966, after the full-scale American intervention was underway. It has something to say to us today, too, about surrendering to a world run by terrorists.
“...Like most Americans I am uncomfortable about our military adventure in South Vietnam; but in honesty I wonder how much of the discomfort has to do with its high cost, in lives and money, and how much with its moral legitimacy. I do not believe that the Vietcong and Ho Chi Minh have a moral edge over us, nor do I believe that great powers can always avoid using their power.
"I am for our intervention if it does some good -- specifically, if it enables the people of South Vietnam to seek their own political future. It is absurd to suggest that a village in the grip of guerrillas has freely chosen, or that we owe it to history to bow before a wave of the future engineered by terrorists. The crying need is for genuine elections whereby the South Vietnamese can express their will. If their will is for Communism, we should pick up our chips and leave. Until such a will is expressed, and as long as no willingness to negotiate is shown by the other side, I do not see that we can abdicate our burdensome position in South Vietnam."
* For the whole O.W. Holmes, Jr. speech, see
http://people.virginia.edu/~mmd5f/memorial.htm
posted by John Barry at 1/30/2009 10:53:00 AM
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