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March 3, 2003 :: 67 to 03
I was 10 in 1967. I remember the Vietnam war at that time as something remote, bad, that made many people angry. The amount of fresh information that we just take for granted about the current war in Iraq just wasn't there. At least not to a 10-year-old.
I was 12 in 1969. I remember the war protests. I remember that there was suddenly the idea that young people could question their elders, and question them with some toughness. I remember daily reports of bodies coming home. I remember that my mother was terrified that it would go on and on, and that I would eventually be drafted, and perhaps die.
I was 15 in 1972. I remember the war ending. I remember the picture of the last helicopter leaving the roof of the embassy in Saigon. I remember the sense of how cynical it all was, that Nixon was ending the war to win the election.
I am 46 in 2003. And all of a sudden the emotions inside me and, I feel, inside many people around me, are awakening to the same sense of urgency that energized those somehow endearing long-haired hippies of the past. Young men and women are dying in Iraq, for a war that most of the world strongly opposes. America is strong, and America has traditionally had a strong moral backbone. But 1.5 billion other people around the world can't all be wrong.
The tragic thing is that now there is no clean exit. Even if this president loses the next election, the next president will be stuck with this situation. We are in the Middle East for the long haul. And I hope that it does not become a conflagration too big for even the mighty United States' military to quell.
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