Viewpoint: Veterans understand measured reaction to war.
My father fought in World War II. He participated in the storming of Omaha Beach. But he rarely spoke of it. When he passed away, I contacted the local Army base and asked for a flag ceremony at his funeral.
I later called the base to thank them for the honor guard that appeared at the service. The base commander said, “No, thank him. When we looked up his record, we found that his service was rare: He was in combat for the entire four years that he was in the European theater.”
Veterans who have been to war rarely discuss it and typically never want to go back.
As I hear the talking heads on TV banging the drum for war, I think about my dad. He was 23 when he was drafted; 23 when he picked up a rifle and marched onshore of a distant land; and 23 when he was killing people he didn’t even know for his country.
Those who are so very eager for the United States to go to war will not go themselves. They will sit in their comfortable chairs and discuss the strategy of it all. They will criticize the president for not doing more, and then they will go to a comfortable bed and sleep safely. All brought to them by those 23-year-olds who are carrying out their follies.
These same politicos will stroll past homeless veterans sleeping on the sidewalk and mumble their irritation that they nearly tripped on them and spilled their $5 cups of coffee. They see no connection — oblivious to the fact that their own actions have created these homeless vets. It is all so clean. Start a war and egg people on to get involved. Wave a flag and declare yourself a patriot, and encourage our faceless and nameless young men and women to go and fight in your name.
This president is correct in his measured response. I want a thoughtful leader, not one who has a knee-jerk response.
I want a leader who will not listen to the clatter of the pundits. I am not so naive that I believe the threat of ISIS is not real and horrible. But so is war.
And in the end, I want to believe that this president always has in his mind the best interests of the 23-year-olds who will actually fight a war — and not just the interests of the guys in the armchairs.
As I hear the talking heads on TV banging the drum for war, I think about my dad. He was 23 when he was drafted; 23 when he picked up a rifle and was killing people he didn’t even know ...