oh, no, wait ... am I traveling backward in time again? Am I back-to-front or front-to-back? Is there something eerily ... backwardly deja vu about
this?
My friends (the one or two who will openly acknowledge or acquaintanceship) tell me that history could never repeat itself as suddenly as this. Well maybe it can and maybe it couldn't. There's a saying, attributed to the Pennsylvania Dutch, that I'm fond of: "We grow too soon old and too late smart". Have truer words e'er been spoken? I bear no ill-will toward the late Mr. McNamara, none at all, because before the end he owned his part in the Vietnam catastrophe. After years of being an asshole, he turned out to be okay. I hope the people on the Wall know that he owned it. As long as that memorial has been standing, I still haven't visited, but I will before I take my last breath. As much as I hate the way "hero" has been made so terribly trite by over-use, I'll use it for these people (as well as for others, but they're for another post). They believed and they went; many were drafted and went against their will, many others volunteered and went to do their part. As it turns out they were lied to and betrayed by an ego. They went and they died, and too many of those who came home were subjected to some pretense that everything was okay because they came back. This is very hard to talk about. I see faces of friends that I haven't seen for 40+ years except in faded old photos or some trinket, like a beer-mug left behind.
I wonder if we'll hear Mr McNamara's words from someone else before long.
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