No Honor for Ingrates Like Ted Rall

You, Master Rall, either suffer from a hyperinflated ego or are inured by a consumptive cynicism. You blaspheme the service of more than 8,000,000 Americans who served honorably in Vietnam. As I read your warped diatribe, it occurs to me you are among the children we fought for in the steaming undergrowth of Southeast Asia and the frozen wastes of North Korea, not to mention the sands and deprivations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Do you have any idea how frenetic it would have been to be dodging death in a place many couldn't locate in a World Atlas before they fought there? No, would be my guess.

How do you think young men half a world away received the news that the very people who put them there were admitting in 1968 that the war was lost. It hit the draftees hardest. I didn't suffer post traumatic stress during my extended service in Vietnam. It was later. It was when, because of my assignment, I attended the open and closed hearings of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees in the U. S. Senate and House.

A real wake-up call was watching Sen. Stuart Symington, among others, reading The Washington Post as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was testifying before him in open session. As soon as the general public withdrew for the executive session to begin, it was as though a curtain was raised. Switch the sad mask for the comedic. Jolly chaps no longer performing before the news media added humor to their exchanges with the witnesses. The hypocrisy of it was a sordid experience I observed for four years. In my mind, it belittled even the scramble of Americans (not combat troopers) to get off our embassy roof. This experience under the Capitol dome dwarfed the ditching of our helicopters off the coast of Vietnam. I was ashamed for my country and not because we lost. We didn't lose. Rather, we weren't permitted to win ---- and by those people who signed off on the Tonkin Gulf Resolution and then couldn't stand the heat inside the beltway.

Never forget, Master Rall, war is never declared nor resolved by our military. It's our sworn duty, to which we swore our oath, to defend our country, our fellow Americans and our Constitution. We carried on despite outrageous limitations, rules of engagement that saved the lives of our enemies and took those of our young men. And never once was there the slightest hint our military leadership might demand a change in our pursuit of victory. No Seven Days in May, then, now - and, hopefully, ever.

Whatever you do, avoid the Vietnam Wall honoring our fallen and the nearby Arlington Cemetery. Dishonor in either is not allowed.

J. C. MacKercher

Weeki Wachee