Let’s Just Consider, Shall We?

I make no bones about being old. In fact, I make certain to tell my readers that I am old for a reason. It should be said that there are millions of reasons for what I chose to do all these years later and that reason is what I want to discuss here. Reasons to write and none of them slight.

The first is that I served in Vietnam, twice. I know, that was a long time ago but let me ask you, is history relevant? Of course it is, despite the fact that few learn from it. I chose to learn from combat and that was a double edged sword. What I figured out after a few decades is that war is inevitable, it is only a matter of circumstances. Who gets angry or who gets greedy or both. Human traits which history tells us is much more common that we might like to think. If we pay attention, there are wars started darned near each year somewhere. It is usually about land and it might also be the sick-and-tired syndrome which we all have. That is when patience runs out and the fists fly.

I was born right after World War Two so I grew up on war and the fables that accompany the aftermath of war. The movies about the hero’s and the gore but what isn’t normally covered is the terrible loss of innocent lives. Knowing this is what changed me, as I was no doubt a part of taking innocent lives. Hell, we all were and we who fought always have been the killers of innocents. Collateral damage, is the term for this, with a shrug of the shoulders. Except when you come home and hear about what you did years or decades later. It isn’t a pleasant thing to shrug it off and just go on with our lives, you know? Perhaps you do not know?

Now, I look back and am bent at the shoulders. Why is that, I asked myself. Sure, I broke a cervical vertebrae way back then but is that what bent me like this? No, I realized, it is not what bent me like this. Instead, it is the weight from taking lives that bent me this way. The ever present dark cloud that hangs over all veterans who have managed to retain their living status. Some of us chose the dying status because of this. In the end, the world is a nasty brew in some celestial kettle of witches brew. Or, is it Satan’s brew? I suppose you would have to read and understand the bible to figure this out for certain. All I can do is to suggest lines of thought. I am glad to do so.

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