Back in Vietnam

Back in Vietnam

Music Selections          Modern – Back in Vietnam – Lenny Kravitz

                                    Generational – We Gotta Get Out of This Place– Animals

                                    Traditional – Fortunate Son– Creedence Clearwater

Donald J. Trump, turned eighteen and draft age, in 1964.  His father had a doctor/friend, and Donald was able to avoid the draft, and the war in Vietnam, with five medical exemptions for bone spurs.

There were a lot of American men who found ways out of Vietnam.  In full disclosure, I was two years too young  (though I still have my “draft card” from the day, and I was still nervous as hell when I had to go and apply for it.)  I never had to make the decision, nor did I ever face the letter with the heading, “greetings from the President of the United States.”  I did watch my older friends struggle, worrying about draft numbers and college deferments.  Some went to Vietnam; many found a way out.

So I can’t really blame Trump for the decisions he and his father made in the 1960’s.  What I can say is that whatever decision you made in that time of crisis, you should own it now.  Bone spurs, becoming a public school teacher, whatever way you found out, don’t hide from the fact.  And for those many who truly believed that fighting in Vietnam was immoral, respect that decision.

But once you took that position, don’t criticize those Americans who went to fight in Vietnam. Criticize the President, the Generals, the Congress, the War; but don’t say a word about those guys in the rice paddies, or helicopters, or walking trails as moving bait for Viet Cong attacks. They didn’t choose Vietnam; they did what they thought our nation expected of them.  

So President Trump will continue his Quixotic effort to speak reason to Kim Jong Un of North Korea, this time in Hanoi.  The last grand meeting in Singapore created a lot of talk, but little action.  Kim did destroy a collapsed underground nuclear testing facility, and he hasn’t sent missiles over Japan recently.  But US intelligence estimates, regardless of the President’s dreams, show that North Korea is continuing to work on developing and improving their nuclear weapons.

It sure seems unlikely that Kim will “give up” his nuclear weapons.  What the US can offer:  a peace treaty for Korea, a removal of some US sanctions, and the possibility of US development of the tourist industry (“don’t they have great beaches”); doesn’t seem enough for Kim to give up the weapons that has become the basis of his national identity. 

The US reaction isn’t Kim’s only worry, he has to be concerned with the economic power of South Korea, the 11^thlargest economy in the world (The Economist.)  North Korea is ranked 118^th.  While North Korea’s 23^rdrated military (without the added nuclear weapons) is behind South Korea’s 12^thranking (depending on US nuclear power), that’s a lot closer than the economic comparison (Business Insider.)  Peace on the peninsula might mean a North Korea subsumed by the South Korean economic juggernaut, winning a peace instead of a war.

Having this summit in Hanoi is symbolic in several ways.  It may well represent the same frustration that the Vietnam War engendered; the idea that the most powerful nation in the world, the United States, could not enforce its will on a dramatically smaller nation.  Like the North Vietnamese outlasting America, Kim may be looking to drag the US along, getting more time for nuclear research while pretending to negotiate.  

For President Trump, Hanoi presents him with another chance to contrast himself to one of the city’s most famous former residents, John McCain.  McCain was imprisoned for five and a half years in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton;” that will be a poor comparison with the image of Trump staying in one of Hanoi’s luxury hotels:  the Intercontinental, the Marriott, the Crowne Plaza, or, ironically, the Hilton.

Don’t count on Trump ignoring the obvious.  He probably will have something negative to say about John McCain once again, the temptation will be too great.  But the real contrast is to John McCain’s determination to use American power to protect the world; to make real changes that made the world safer.  I was not a great supporter of McCain, and I don’t necessarily agree with his willingness to use our military to intervene in every world situation.  But two things were clear:  he had a substantive idea of what was needed, and he had the courage to implement it.  

The President has no plan, simply image.  And, bone spurs or not, he clearly doesn’t have the courage to work for real change.