The holiday that hurts

[Donald_Kirchner]

Don: don't overplay that hostility card. 

Those are the stories my uncles described to me, as well as the stories many veterans from that era who I have served have described.  It is not overplayed one bit.  Kent State, Jane Fonda anyone?

Your uncle's experience and mine seem to have been different.  But I would find it hard to believe that I am the only Vietnam vet who wasn't spit upon.  Also, please remember that our stories grower bigger along with the number of our birthdays 

So, can we agree that "there were those in your generation [not all] who spit on the soldiers and called them "Baby killers!" and worse when they came home" is hardly overplaying the hostility card and focus on Veteran's Day?

[Donald_Kirchner]

It seems to me that those who serve in the military do sacrifice - mainly for the benefit of others.

It seems to me that those who refuse to serve in the military (other than for religious reasons) do sacrifice - mainly for the benefit of themselves. 

How many join the military as a way to get a job and a paycheck - thus serving themselves?


What about the millions of young people who neither join nor refuse to serve? I was given a 4-D deferment (minister - a life-time deferment) back when there was a draft when I was attending Bible school. Otherwise I certainly would have been drafted since my lottery number was 7 - and a student deferment was good for only 4 years. I didn't refuse to serve in the military. Neither did I volunteer. Had I been drafted I would have gone.

Well, yes you did refuse to serve by obtaining a student deferment. So, what about them? Veteran's Day is not about you or them, BS. It's about military veterans, lest in your word games and homemade definitions you consider yourself a veteran by being in the ministry of the Church Militant for decades.   

[RevG]

Vietnam fell to the Communists, but none of the predicted consequences of that fall resulted.  In fact, just the opposite.  Vietnam is now a trading partner.  We had the opportunity to side with Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam's civil war.  We chose not too.  But, doing so would have made a lot of sense because we should have factored in the long-standing adversarial relationship between Vietnam and China.

You have forgotten that in the 10 years after the end of the war 1–2.5 million South Vietnamese were sent to reeducation camps, with an estimated 165,000 prisoners dying.  Between 65,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese were executed.  Add to this the millions executed and murdered by Pol Pot in Cambodia. During my youth I watched the Lutheran church help in resettling Laotian refugees from the war.  They were fortunate.  It is estimated that at least 100,000 of their countrymen were killed in collaboration with the People's Army of Vietnam.  Our soldiers fought in that war, in part, to keep these atrocities from occurring.  These were not part of the "predicted consequences"?

We (U.S.) politically and financially backed Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.  This is well documented.

In Christ,
Scott+

[SomeoneWrites]

I have a ton of thoughts about war, Vietnam, Iraq, administrations, just wars, hero worship, VA neglect, military budgets, and such things.  Each one, would be a thread in its own right.  But there's a time and place for everything. 

Here, I would like to express a sincere Thank you to all the veterans reading this.  I believe I understand the gravity of the decision, which is why I chose not to enlist.  You have done what I could/would not.   Thank you for your service. 

[MaddogLutheran]

I am not critical of those who serve as warriors.  I am critical of those who send them to war, especially when they do so on false pretenses. 

What is truth?  Or perhaps, who's truth?

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  But, if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Yes, it has been established previously that you are in favor of confessing sins...but at the same time, the "we" have that has been somewhat problematic, as well was what particularly needs to be confessed.

[Buckeye Deaconess]

Even Luther got it (emphasis mine) . . .

When men write about war, then, and say that it is a great plague, that is all true; but they should also see how great the plague is that it prevents. If people were good, and glad to keep peace, war would be the greatest plague on earth; but what are you going to do with the fact that people will not keep peace, but rob, steal, kill, outrage women and children, and take away property and honor? The small lack of peace, called war, or the sword, must set a check upon this universal, world-wide lack of peace, before which no one could stand. Therefore God honors the sword so highly that He calls it His own ordinance, and will not have men say or imagine that they have invented it or instituted it. For the hand that wields this sword and slays with it is then no more man’s hand, but God’s, and it is not man, but God, who hangs, tortures, beheads, slays and fights. All these are His works and His judgments. In a word, in thinking of the soldier’s office, we must not have regard to the slaying, burning, smiting, seizing, etc. That is what the narrow, simple eyes of children do, when they see in the physician only a man who cuts off hands or saws off legs, but do not see that he does it to save the whole body. So, too, we must look at the office of the soldier, or the sword, with grown-up eyes, and see why it slays and acts so cruelly. Then it will prove itself to be an office that, in itself, is godly, as needful and useful to the world as eating and drinking or any other work.

[Donald_Kirchner]

I am not critical of those who serve as warriors.  I am critical of those who send them to war, especially when they do so on false pretenses. 

What is truth?  Or perhaps, who's truth?

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  But, if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Yes, it has been established previously that you are in favor of confessing sins...but at the same time, the "we" have that has been somewhat problematic, as well was what particularly needs to be confessed.

Keep in mind that when Mr. Mundinger uses the term "we," itis nearly always the royal we, IOW "those other guys" about whom he's complaining.

[John Mundinger]

You have forgotten that in the 10 years after the end of the war 1–2.5 million South Vietnamese were sent to reeducation camps, with an estimated 165,000 prisoners dying.  Between 65,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese were executed. 

No, I haven't.  Those people lost a civil war that we helped to perpetuate.  We share the blame for those deaths, too.  How might things have been different, had we engaged for peace rather than to perpetuate the violence?

Our soldiers fought in that war, in part, to keep these atrocities from occurring.

At least that is the propaganda we fed ourselves to justify our own atrocities.  Had that been the real motive, we could have found much better approaches to achieve that end.

[John Mundinger]

So, can we agree that "there were those in your generation [not all] who spit on the soldiers and called them "Baby killers!" and worse when they came home" is hardly overplaying the hostility card and focus on Veteran's Day?

We can agree on those points.  Can we also agree that our nation has yet to repent for the atrocities we committed during that war?

[John Mundinger]

Keep in mind that when Mr. Mundinger uses the term "we," itis nearly always the royal we, IOW "those other guys" about whom he's complaining.

Not in this case, Pr. Kirchner.  I served in one immoral war and my taxes supported another.  It's as much my sin as it is the sin of those other guys.

[LutherMan]

Too bad a thread that was intended to be a warm tribute is getting all crapped up...

[Donald_Kirchner]

You are right, LutherMan. An excellent and appropriate article as well as the first 3 replies. Then things went sideways, and I apologize for following and participating in that dreck.

[LutherMan]

You are right, LutherMan. An excellent and appropriate article as well as the first 3 replies. Then things went sideways, and I apologize for following and participating in that dreck.

Not to worry-----I understand why you do it...

[Buckeye Deaconess]

Too bad a thread that was intended to be a warm tribute is getting all crapped up...

Well, the leftover hostilities from the 60s and 70s have certainly surfaced.  Thanks for getting us started on a good note, any way.  My heart breaks for those veterans who are struggling to cope with the task that was put before them.  The rate of suicide among this group is unnerving.  That some would wish to shame them for their service is equally unnerving.

I wonder what these same folks will say and do when ISIS is knocking on their door trying to treat their loved ones as others are being treated around the globe.  The treatment of women and young girls is especially appalling, but let's just hide behind our unjust war claims and not support the use of our forces for good to protect the innocents.

[Charles Austin]

The deaconess persists:
Well, the leftover hostilities from the 60s and 70s have certainly surfaced.  Thanks for getting us started on a good note, any way.  My heart breaks for those veterans who are struggling to cope with the task that was put before them.  The rate of suicide among this group is unnerving.  That some would wish to shame them for their service is equally unnerving.
I comment:
Stop creating and re-creating your own mythology. My heart breaks for the veterans who now suffer what they never should have suffered, had we not sent them where they should not have gone. My heart breaks for the veterans who can't get what they need from the VA. My heart breaks for the families of those in uniform today who don't know in what local war their loved one is like to die.

The deaconess writes:
I wonder what these same folks will say and do when ISIS is knocking on their door trying to treat their loved ones as others are being treated around the globe.  The treatment of women and young girls is especially appalling, but let's just hide behind our unjust war claims and not support the use of our forces for good to protect the innocents.
I comment:
For heaven's sake, has the discussion sunk that low? I guess so, in the over-heated attempt to justify our reliance on military might.
Here is another view, from one who served as an infantry officer in Iraq.
http://www.northjersey.com/opinion/opinion-guest-writers/patriotic-pageantry-sanitizes-the-realities-of-war-1.1452731
Why this reluctance to admit that as a nation we have been far too quick to send our men and women into combat elsewhere, that we have romanticized war, that we are fascinated with the technology of war, that we think our nation is strong because we are armed?
It does not detract from the service of those in uniform to look at the bigger picture. But it is part of the national myth that all we should do is look at the man or woman who went into combat and served bravely, rather than to look at the often stupid reasons they were sent into combat.