Cindy Sheehan: In-Curious George Goes to Vietnam

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION by Cindy Sheehan

Q: What is the difference between Vietnam and Iraq?
A: George Bush had an exit plan for Vietnam.

This is an old joke that has made the circuits. It is amusing, but not really one hundred percent accurate. George didn't have a strategy for exiting Vietnam...he had a very clear and orchestrated plan between his father's friends and his illicit drug problems to not even go to Vietnam. In my journey since Casey was killed, I have met many fine men and women who didn't dodge their duty to be dragged off to Vietnam, although most of them disagreed with that tragic war. However, most of them were conscripted against their wills and they didn't have the "advantages" of being wealthy and having influential friends to keep them out of combat.

Vietnam Vets are not the only veteran friends I have, though. I also am close to many fine, yet damaged, young people who are already vets of the Iraq occupation. They were not conscripted, but they still have feelings of betrayal for being lied to by their commander in chief who sent them off to do his dirty work and kill people who were no danger to the US and were only demonized and made enemies by people who wanted to profit from their destruction. Conscripted vets or volunteer vets, alike, have seen their buddies blown apart and atrocities committed on innocent civilians. Both sets of vets have returned home to countries that seem unreal and fake to them. A country where Jennifer and Vince's relationship or who wins Dancing With the Stars seems more important than our troops being extended overseas, or VA benefits getting cut.

My Veteran friends are all suffering from PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, which was called "shell shock" in prior wars, in one form or the other. Stunningly, the mainstream media is just realizing that war damages the soldiers almost as much as it damages the innocent population that war is waged against. The media are finally waking up to the fact that our troops who do come home alive are just shells or ghosts of the people that they used to be and are often time struggling to find help in a system that is being gutted by the same people who pump money into the war machine to continue this ungodly and godless mess. A dear friend of mine, Kevin Lucey, cut his Iraq veteran son, Jeffrey, down from a garden hose that he was hanging from in their basement months after he returned from Iraq and couldn't receive the help he needed from the same system that inflicted his pain on him. Jeffrey wasn't the same and now his family will never be the same. His mother, Joyce, who was denied the dubious honor of "Gold Star" has the same unrelenting and horrid pain that we have whose sons came home in a body bag.

As wounded as the vets that I know are, they have counterparts who aren't as lucky, who are living and dying on the streets. Vietnam vets comprise the highest number of homeless people in our country. Twice the number of Vietnam vets have killed themselves since the war and that doesn't even count the ones who are committing slow suicide on the streets. Now, BushCo are creating an entire new generation of compromised vets who are heading down the road to the same fate.

George is on an Asian trip right now which includes a visit to Vietnam for an economic summit. In his entire life of theoretically being in the service during the Vietnam conflict, having a father that was actively involved in politics, and being president for almost six years, this will, incredibly, be the first time that he has visited that country. A country, that despite a horrible war that was the front for the war against Communism is now a communist country.

Millions of the young people who were unfortunate to be of age in the '60's and '70's were told that they were being forced to go fight in Vietnam to halt the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. 58,000 of them and millions of Vietnamese were killed or displaced and 30 years later the country is a communist stronghold in the area. Now, 30 years later, our young people are being told that they are fighting the central front on terrorism. More of them have been killed in the first not even four years of fighting than were killed in Vietnam in the same time period. Almost one million Iraqis have been slaughtered in an occupation that violates all international and national laws. Where is Iraq going to be in 30 years? What is terrorism going to look like when my children are parents and grandparents? Afghanistan is back in the hands of the warlords and opium producers and looks worse than pre-invasion Afghanistan. What will we have accomplished in that other Bush-torn country?

George will finally be visiting a country that he so assiduously avoided in his early years. I hope he sends post cards to his Vice-Draft Dodger, Darth Cheney, who had better things to do than die for a lie back in his twenties. Ultimately, I don't care that the George and Dick show got out of going to Vietnam, I think everyone should have refused to go to that war, as I think our troops should refuse to go to Iraq and die for lies. What I do have a problem with is that George and Dick grew up to send my son to die for a lie. They grew up to cut VA funding so that Jeff Lucey preferred death to living under the specter of war. They grew up to put our children in another violent situation where they are losing to a smaller and less-well equipped home grown insurgency. When will our leaders (in name only) learn that occupying other people's countries never works? They will never learn until our nominal leaders are punished for their crimes against humanity.

I am also heading to Asia next week to meet with Korean farmers whose lands are being stolen from them by the US military complex that, I fear, wants to swallow the world. I will also be witness to a country that was torn by war and devastated by our misleaders. I will be walking in the footsteps of yet another generation of brave troops who were also sold a bill of goods to fight in an undeclared war for their "ism" for profit.

As the old song goes: When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION 

Cindy Sheehan is Mother of Casey Sheehan who was KIA in Iraq on 04/04/04 by George's war of terror.
Co-founder and President of Gold Star Families for Peace.
Founder of Camp Casey Peace Institute
Author of Peace Mom: A Mother's Journey through Heartache to Activism and Jail Bird for Peace.

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