Television showed a bunch of war movies on Memorial Day. One of them, "Hamburger Hill," punched a lot of old buttons for me, brought me back to pieces of Vietnam that I carry in the back of my memory.
I went to Vietnam for a bundle of complex reasons. Some of them related to a symbolic idea that I was paying dues so my sons wouldn't have to go, mystical, almost voodoo but it was in my thinking. Too old to reconnect with the Navy, I went as a Foreign Service Officer attached to USAID/Vietnam.
I went upcountry as often as I could, felt an obligation to get close, at least to validate my justification for being there, to share the smell and fear, experience a small bit of what the kids were going through. Translate MacNamara's soaring rhetoric into the reality the kids were experiencing in the countryside. Somehow they all became my sons.
I learned to rap, understood the pidgin Vietnamese we spoke, learned the meaning of the phrase "it don't mean nothing" their mantra, a nihilist incantation which helped them deal with the hypocrisy and contradictions of the world in which they found themselves.Black soldiers, 25% of our draftee army, felt themselves alienated and were resentful, they asserted themselves by sharing a 5 minute brotherhood handshake, a declaration of their separation and anger. A silent but understood protest.
How "being short" tended to make them overcautious, counting days until they could get to Camp Alpha, pass under the sign that read "This Way To The World," board the "Freedom Bird" and get back to the "world." Babies being turned into instant old men by a terrifying reality that was barely understood. And the tune "We gotta get out of this place" echoes in my head. They were angry much of the time but they fought well, keeping themselves and their buddies alive. They fought well, even on missions that made no sense and that they didn’t understand.
It's hard for me to realize that most of those kids, those who survived, in my memory are now men in their sixties. Men who have carried their scars and nightmares through the intervening forty years, became insurance salesmen, lawyers, doctors and doormen. Grandfathers now with memories, rationalizations and distortions of their own. For the thousands who did not survive we now have Memorial Day rituals with wreath laying and moments of silence, flags, bugles, rituals. Those deprived of life and a future.
I wallowed in the same bullshit that they did in order to try to understand how policy, stratagy, tactics become meaningless
ki bouki dances which lead to death and destruction but became statistics in MACV headquarters the Pentagon, Embassy, and the White House.
And still, old men make war an instrument of policy and young men are told to be brave and die. "It don't mean nothing" came to sum up the whole experience. Somehow the whole thing seems pointless in retrospect and yet I'm dammed glad I was there.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
The Loyal Opposition
Whatever became of the concept of the loyal opposition ? Just a few short months into the Obama administration and the Republicans, unable to structure a rational policy for their party, are shrieking treason and disaster. Now disowning the eight years of folly and mal-administration they are carping about the speaker of the House’s knowledge of their illegal deeds as if this is tantamount to approval and complicity. Another pathetic example of political jiu-jitsu. Unwilling or unable to just own up to the fact that the Bush administration knowingly committed torture in pursuit of trying to justify blaming Iraq for the 9-11 attacks planned and carried out by Saudis, the salient issue has become whether Nancy Pelosi was informed of their misdeeds or not. What skewed logic.
Not surprisingly, our home grown neocons, Dick Ford among them, are eager to pile on, to be counted among the thoughtless and the slanderers. Unable to structure a rational dissent they instead resort to misdirection and denial
Not surprisingly, our home grown neocons, Dick Ford among them, are eager to pile on, to be counted among the thoughtless and the slanderers. Unable to structure a rational dissent they instead resort to misdirection and denial
Friday, May 22, 2009
Memorial Day
Memorial Day a day we think about our wars. Wars that were necessary and righteous, wars we fought because we were obligated to help someone, wars we stumbled into for philosophic reasons, but now we have one simply because we went looking for it- led by a fool who said “bring it on” like some cowboy in a grade B movie.
In time we will lament those who died for our misjudgment, build some garish memorial and invent a myth to justify our mistake. It will be spun into the history and with colorable distortion and the passage of time made to look virtuous and necessary.
History is constructed that way, the winners with selective memory and self-justification will weave a fabric, a whole cloth that will cover and obfuscate the terrible, foolish judgments that brought us to folly, to follow meaningless slogans and mantras as if they held wisdom and truths. The dead will be revered, their pain forgotten, their sacrifice lauded as if they contributed to some noble purpose rather than admit they were victim to some blind stupid leadership that chose to believe their own slogans rather than perceive reality and saw their own confusion as some heroic cause. In this way we disguise our guilt for killing our children and seek their forgiveness.
So today we decorate the graves of those who died for noble causes and those who died for purposeless mistakes, equally lost, equally dead and mourned.
In time we will lament those who died for our misjudgment, build some garish memorial and invent a myth to justify our mistake. It will be spun into the history and with colorable distortion and the passage of time made to look virtuous and necessary.
History is constructed that way, the winners with selective memory and self-justification will weave a fabric, a whole cloth that will cover and obfuscate the terrible, foolish judgments that brought us to folly, to follow meaningless slogans and mantras as if they held wisdom and truths. The dead will be revered, their pain forgotten, their sacrifice lauded as if they contributed to some noble purpose rather than admit they were victim to some blind stupid leadership that chose to believe their own slogans rather than perceive reality and saw their own confusion as some heroic cause. In this way we disguise our guilt for killing our children and seek their forgiveness.
So today we decorate the graves of those who died for noble causes and those who died for purposeless mistakes, equally lost, equally dead and mourned.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Regrets
When I was in Vietnam I wrote a poem which I titled “My heart is like a small brown bird “ to describe feelings of total vulnerability in a landscape of hostility and danger. Unfortunately it did not survive an episode of ego immolation when I burned all of my attempts at literary expression, perhaps to hide my vulnerability.
Recently, I read a piece by Gunter Grass where he described his recent confessional writings entitled “Peeling the Onion.” A masterful title by a man of genius and honesty. His critics attacked him for hiding his early Nazi connections while presenting himself for years as a moral authority yet I find no inconsistency. If confession is said to be good for the soul, why demand consistency and perfection in the human experience ? Christians contend the last perfect man was Jesus Christ, I suspect no such person ever existed.
Recently, I read a piece by Gunter Grass where he described his recent confessional writings entitled “Peeling the Onion.” A masterful title by a man of genius and honesty. His critics attacked him for hiding his early Nazi connections while presenting himself for years as a moral authority yet I find no inconsistency. If confession is said to be good for the soul, why demand consistency and perfection in the human experience ? Christians contend the last perfect man was Jesus Christ, I suspect no such person ever existed.
On the other hand
I'm not often on both sides of an argument and I'm no pundit when it comes to economics but there are some aspects of this mortgage crisis that I don't understand.
Sure the real estate market has gone soft but on the other hand I don't know too many people who check the real estate section of their morning newspaper to see if the value of their home has gone down so why then is it crisis when your home would not sell today for what you paid for it ? And how is that justification for not repaying the money you borrowed to buy it in the first place ?
Many people who play the stock market and check the stock market reports daily would never dream of disavowing a debt incurred for a stock purchase (on margin or otherwise) so how is someone "damaged" when they still owe the purchase price of their home while its current resale value is less than what they paid ?
As a law student I was taught that a property mortgaged is merely security for the repayment of a debt and that the debt was not contingent on the value of the security being constant. And if you're not contemplating a sale of your home anyway what is the significance of its current value being down ? The mind boggles.
If I finance the purchase of a new car and it is wrecked or stolen and my insurance has lapsed am I off the hook as to paying off the balance of the loan ? Hardly. Then why the rush to "bail out" the homeowner who owes m
ore than his home is currently worth. Isn't debt absolute, regardless of the home's resale value ? And wouldn't the buyer be subject to a possible deficiency judgement in the event a foreclosure failed to yield enough to pay off the loan ? So when did the rules change ?
And with respect to the Minnesota Senate race---"send in the clown!"
Sure the real estate market has gone soft but on the other hand I don't know too many people who check the real estate section of their morning newspaper to see if the value of their home has gone down so why then is it crisis when your home would not sell today for what you paid for it ? And how is that justification for not repaying the money you borrowed to buy it in the first place ?
Many people who play the stock market and check the stock market reports daily would never dream of disavowing a debt incurred for a stock purchase (on margin or otherwise) so how is someone "damaged" when they still owe the purchase price of their home while its current resale value is less than what they paid ?
As a law student I was taught that a property mortgaged is merely security for the repayment of a debt and that the debt was not contingent on the value of the security being constant. And if you're not contemplating a sale of your home anyway what is the significance of its current value being down ? The mind boggles.
If I finance the purchase of a new car and it is wrecked or stolen and my insurance has lapsed am I off the hook as to paying off the balance of the loan ? Hardly. Then why the rush to "bail out" the homeowner who owes m
ore than his home is currently worth. Isn't debt absolute, regardless of the home's resale value ? And wouldn't the buyer be subject to a possible deficiency judgement in the event a foreclosure failed to yield enough to pay off the loan ? So when did the rules change ?
And with respect to the Minnesota Senate race---"send in the clown!"
A WALK ABOUT
I understand what the Aussies mean by a walkabout. I think they get it from the Abbies but I’m not sure. Anyway I would like t take one walk around through the corridors of my past- wander around Baldwin, Florence, the Bronx shake hands with shadows and stir the memories.
Now that I’m almost 80 it makes a lot of sense as something important worth doing. But hell my feet give me trouble and I have other problems which would impinge on my ability to travel. Maybe do it by car in slow stages. Would like to see Saigon, Singapore and Manila again too but that’s out of the question.
Might settle for a good beer and a nap. My dream work goes overtime these days and in some ways that’s the next best thing. Aussie Aborigines call something in their past “Deaming time” ok.
Now that I’m almost 80 it makes a lot of sense as something important worth doing. But hell my feet give me trouble and I have other problems which would impinge on my ability to travel. Maybe do it by car in slow stages. Would like to see Saigon, Singapore and Manila again too but that’s out of the question.
Might settle for a good beer and a nap. My dream work goes overtime these days and in some ways that’s the next best thing. Aussie Aborigines call something in their past “Deaming time” ok.
Hedge Funds
Hedge funds, the hit and run vehicles of the very wealthy have withheld their cooperation and sabotaged a settlement and forced Chrysler into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in hopes of securing a bigger bite of the additional federal funding being provided to the auto maker. Never a long term investor in Chrysler, the hedge funds bought in in hope of a quick hit, a profitable in and out, without any concern for the survivability of Chrysler nor its importance to the American economy. Their heavy ability to leverage situations to their sole advantage is proof that regulation of these funds is long past due.
Some quotes from H.L. Menken:
1) “a judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.”
2) “faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the impossible.”
3) “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it, good and hard.”
Some quotes from H.L. Menken:
1) “a judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.”
2) “faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the impossible.”
3) “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it, good and hard.”
Fat man with a Thin Man’s wardrobe
Once, quite a while ago, I dressed with a certain flair, a quiet elegance; not designer labels, but quiet Brooks Brothers, Florsham Imperials, British cut sport jackets, from John Hue, Hong Kong - all fit, stylish without outlandish flash - but then that was a long time and many pounds ago. I wore them with an air of confidence; dressed right for every occasion.
Now I not longer own a suit, my few sport jackets (relics of an earlier age ) are unbuttonable by several inches, trousers are a “battle of the bulge” and my few inelegant shoes no longer fit. Neckties hang at the back of the closet, seldom seen or visited. I do have a reasonable, almost generous, supply of sport shirts which I only wear on weekends should some excursion be in the offing. In short, I am sorely out of fashion, a 210 pound man with a 185 pound wardrobe, or what’s left of one. Still, I abhor looking frumpy, out of style on those rare occasions where a better style is expected of me - when I know better but lack the means or real desire to become fashionable.
I would like to achieve what I once regarded as my own style, an ageless elegance's the time when I visited Randy at RISD, expected to appear like an older Ivy leaguer and was perceived as an Orson Welles type. But then, even when dressing weird my clothes fit. Alas, no longer.
I still dream, on occasion, of the feel of a good English tweed jacket, roomy in cut, sharply creased trousers breaking smartly above excellent custom made Jodphur boots, Sea Island cotton shirts and a subdued Italian silk tie. That was me. The smart chap who drove a vintage Alfa-Romero and drank only 12 year old scotch.
I’ve heard transsexuals say they are females trapped in a male body or visa versa - never understood it until I realized I’m a fashionable, trim, in shape middle aged guy trapped in the body of an overweight, poorly dressed fat old guy QED.
Now I not longer own a suit, my few sport jackets (relics of an earlier age ) are unbuttonable by several inches, trousers are a “battle of the bulge” and my few inelegant shoes no longer fit. Neckties hang at the back of the closet, seldom seen or visited. I do have a reasonable, almost generous, supply of sport shirts which I only wear on weekends should some excursion be in the offing. In short, I am sorely out of fashion, a 210 pound man with a 185 pound wardrobe, or what’s left of one. Still, I abhor looking frumpy, out of style on those rare occasions where a better style is expected of me - when I know better but lack the means or real desire to become fashionable.
I would like to achieve what I once regarded as my own style, an ageless elegance's the time when I visited Randy at RISD, expected to appear like an older Ivy leaguer and was perceived as an Orson Welles type. But then, even when dressing weird my clothes fit. Alas, no longer.
I still dream, on occasion, of the feel of a good English tweed jacket, roomy in cut, sharply creased trousers breaking smartly above excellent custom made Jodphur boots, Sea Island cotton shirts and a subdued Italian silk tie. That was me. The smart chap who drove a vintage Alfa-Romero and drank only 12 year old scotch.
I’ve heard transsexuals say they are females trapped in a male body or visa versa - never understood it until I realized I’m a fashionable, trim, in shape middle aged guy trapped in the body of an overweight, poorly dressed fat old guy QED.
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