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I was a War Baby
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Posted by: laborat
I was a War baby...that means I was born in 1946 the first of the burgeoning generation of the "Boomers"...sons and daughters of the Men and Women who came home alive from the second War to end all Wars. Men and Women who as often as not when asked about the war changed the subject even as their eyes misted over, remembering perhaps lost comrades and friends for the briefest of moments, suspended in a time that memory holds.
War is not something you can describe to someone who has never been there. No amount of training can prepare you for the chaos of an actual firefight. No heart can hold the sorrow and shock of your buddy laying dead next to you. You feel guilty because you are alive...because you are afraid...because you want to be anywhere, anyplace other than where duty forces you to be. When we speak of courage we are actually saying that admist all these feelings we prevail because there is no other choice.
Before I was even in grade school, we were at War again. In Korea. I would play with my friends in the neighborhood and we would be the good guys and as proper soldiers we would overcome the enemy with our bb guns and toys guns with fixed rubber bayonets. I lay on my back on a sunny summer afternoon and watched as waves and waves of bombers, fighters, and other planes flew overhead for the graveyards of the desert southwest. I couldn't understand why my mom and dad had angry words after I had gone to bed whether i should be taught how to fire a rifle. Whenever I asked about My Uncle Bob about where he was...I would just get a vague answer that he was "away."
War is not something you can describe to someone who has never been there. No amount of Patriotism can blunt the pain of a notifaction that your son had died for the country. No medal can replace a familiar friendly face at Christmas. No sacrifice for the good of the Nation is enough when measured in the blood of sons and daughters. When we speak of Patriotism we are
actually saying that admist all these feelings we prevail because there is no other choice.
At the tender age of 16, I ran away from home and hitched a ride to Springfield to enlist in the marines. The son of a Navy Veteran and an Army Family I was doing what was expected of me, but earlier than I should. I had been enamored with the romance of war and sheltered from the ugliness that war brings out in all of us. I quite literally wanted to go to southeast asia and kill commies. I didn't really know what a commie was other than they were the enemy of the free world and democracy. I made it all the way to the bus that would take us to some boot camp in california...but my mother and father were waiting for me at the terminal along with my CO. I rode home with them in
a chilly silence silence...ashamed at having missed my opportunity to carry on the family legacy and become a hero of heroes.
War is not something you can describe to someone who has never been there. No book or movie can tell a truth that has any close meaning. No sound or smell or touch in our reality can prepare us for the smell of death, the sound of dying men screaming for loved ones, or the touch of madness that turns men into beserkers who kill anything that moves, friend, enemy, and innocents.When we speak of courage we are actually saying that admist all these feelings we prevail because there is no other choice.
Somehow somewhere over the last 40 or so years, the boy who saw war as a means for personal glory became the man who wonders how much that glory had cost...no one who goes to war comes back the same. Deep down within us we all want to be heroes...like Washington, Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Patton...able to lead our country out of the jaws of defeat into a glorious victory over the evils that threaten the free world. Our myth of invincibility has led us to believe that we are invincible. Like Ghost Dancers the bullets of the enemy cannot touch those whose cause is just.
War is not something you can describe to someone who has never been there. Patriotism is not crys for Blood or Vengance in the Streets. It is not calling in death threats to American citizens who by ethnic birth resemble the face of a nameless enemy. It is not blindly calling other views as being Un-American. Nor does Patriotism succumb to the temptations to suspend our freedoms to the tenants of Dogma. When we speak of Patriotism we are actually saying that admist all these feelings we prevail because there is no other choice.
As I write this, a necessity emotionally...caused by posts on this board and others, and the amount of anger and emotions that threated to break apart friends and netmates...the images of blosssuming Plumes of Fire atop the Towers of WTC play over and over again...on CNN...on CBS...on NBC...on ABC...on Fox...in my mind, my dreams, my conversations. The tearful interviews of survivors and those who loved ones are missing tear at my heart and reopen inner wounds I had thought if not healed at least calloused over. The incredible has happened. The War is on our territory. We mobilize not to save the world but to save ourselves.
We are going to war with a nameless enemy...an army of no-mans who move through our free society like sharks looking for the best ways to inspire more terror and uncertainty in our daily lives.
War is not something you can describe to someone who has never been there. I suppose I should qualify that now, for the war has come home. The enemy is here. It could be your next door neighbor, your lover, your garbageman. We will not be fighting for territory. We are fighting for our way of life. Our freedoms and the freedoms of Democracy in the free world. The closest parallel would be a War between Law and Chaos. The enemys objective is not to conquer us but to destroy our way of life. I WILL NOT BE COWED by cowards who would diminish my quality of life. I will DIE before I let these Bastards beat me down.
I will be steadfast and resolute in my beliefs in Law, in GOD, in our leaders will that they will look at the facts and do what they must. I will cling to my belief that we can combat terrorism and still not yield our basic freedoms of speech, of movement, of assembly. When I speak of the undaunting unbending american spirit...of the ordinary and unnamed heroes that have emerged in this horrific tragedy...of our resolve to protect our freedoms...I am actually saying that admist all these feelings I think we will prevail for there is no other choice.
I was a War baby.
Posted by: Shalome
Beautiful, Laborat.
-Shalome (which, in addition to meaning hello and goodbye, means "peace"... "salaam" = "shalome")
Posted by: chaosisreality
Starts singing "War" by Bruce Springsteen 
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