Everyone is familiar with John Kerry’s Congressional testimony in which he said:
This song sure isn’t subtle, but it makes the same point. Whatever you may have thought about the decision to go into Afghanistan, it is clear that our presence serves no purpose there now, and can be expected to lead to no beneficial result.
So who gets to be the last man (or woman)?
I have played this song several times. It made me cry.
We have Vietnam all over again. Didn’t anyone read American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest? We lost a whole generation of Americans to a terrible war. I lost friends. I have friends now who grew up with parents who were suffering PTSD from their experiences in Vietnam. War is not the answer…
I look at the price tag for the wars we are now fighting and envision all the food, schools, hospitals, farm aid, village wells, and growth in peace that could be fostered with those same dollars.
During Christmas 2007, as a JP, I performed several weddings for soldiers going to Iraq. This week I am performing a wedding for a soldier going to Afghanistan. It breaks my heart, and not one of the guard members I have met wants to go. Every single one is committed to fulfilling their obligation and supporting their country, but not one of the soldiers I have met since these wars were begun has wanted to go. And, every single soldier I have met who has served there has not wanted to go back and believes the wars have many, many insurmountable problems.
I am losing total faith in Obama. He has taken the Bush war doctrine and made it his own.
Flood the airwaves with this song and more like it. Thank you Jack.