A Flower in Your Hair
My friends who fought in Vietnam felt attacked. They came home, often on a direct flight straight to the US from Da Nang in the war zone, to a country ripped by division. They were advised to change into “civies” before they left the plane – a uniformed soldier might get insulted or spit on or even attacked as they walked through the airport.
Many were draftees, with no real choice but to go and fight in Vietnam. But others volunteered, legitimately feeling that they were fighting for their country. Either way, they weren’t politicians, not involved in setting the policies that resulted in what was then America’s longest war. They were doing “their job”, often times as “bait” to draw out the enemy insurgents. Much like the more recent veterans who “cleared” the roads by driving down them to trigger Improvised Explosive Devices, Vietnam vets were often marched through the jungle to trigger ambushes and create a “fire-fight”.
Many of those Vietnam vets came home conflicted. They didn’t know what they fought for, other than the men beside them. It was a war of survival in the jungle, of an enemy who often killed from unseen positions, or used women or children as traps, or punji sticks camouflaged on the trail.
War on Facetime
Many of my friends who came back from Afghanistan felt the same way. The enemy was “part” of the environment, fighting from their home villages. Friend and foe alike were hard to identify. Such simple considerations as not shooting children could result in losing a fellow American. The ground rules were not the same, not what they grew up with in American small towns like Pataskala. And when they wanted to see those small towns – they were only a phone call away.
My Vietnam era friends often asked – what were we fighting for? There really wasn’t a clear answer: we went into Vietnam to “save democracy”, but that Vietnamese democracy never existed. We went to stop Communism, but found we were really just stopping the Vietnamese from choosing their own government.
And we found in Vietnam that no matter how strong we were, we couldn’t defeat a clearly weaker enemy. More bombs were dropped on Vietnam than in all of World War II, but it didn’t seem to have an impact. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers could live on a cup of rice a day. And they were motivated to win back their country.
Mission Creep
The War in Afghanistan lasted for twenty years. America went into battle with righteous might, the rubble of the twin towers still smoking on the tip of Manhattan. We knew why we were there. But somewhere in the two decades after, that cause seemed long lost. “Mission Creep”, starting with one goal but finding the “finish line” constantly moving, became the hallmark of US strategy in Afghanistan. As we withdraw today, some cry “Al Qaeda will be back”. But it rings hollow, it really wasn’t even why we were fighting for most of the past two decades.
My friends who fought in Afghanistan ask – why did I fight there? But unlike my Vietnam era friends, they should have a clearer understanding of their mission, even though it got lost as the War dragged on. They were fighting against the foes of the United States. And while the Taliban did NOT attack the Twin Towers, they enabled those who did. But like most wars, in the end they were fighting for each other, for the man or woman who stood shoulder to shoulder with them. And some of those were Afghans, now left behind as the Taliban take control.
Not in Vain
The difference between the two wars is that the Afghanistan War veterans have a clearer view. They can be sad and angry about how the United State ended it, but can be clear about the heroic goals of their service. You did us proud, as did your grandfathers in Vietnam. As as nation we might not agree on many things, but your sacrifice was not in vain. For two decades you cleared the nation of our enemies, and gave the Afghans hope for a future.
There is a “theory of revolution”. It goes like this: revolutions don’t happen when people are oppressed. They happen when oppressed folks are given hope, and that hope is taken away. From the American Revolution to the French and the Russian, it wasn’t at the lowest time that the people rose up. It was the time after hope was snatched away that revolution began. We can hope that is true in Afghanistan as well, for a time when the Afghans themselves will determine that the Taliban way is not what they want. And the example they will look to, the time of hope, is the two decades provided by US Forces.
Our Afghanistan Veterans did that.
