Don’t assume …

This image reminds me of my friend, Jerry Donnellan, who left his war medals at the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC. I asked whether, in his experience, liberals hate soldiers. As a rule, he said, they do not.

Yesterday, as I was doing my regular Wednesday co-host gig with Blake Butler on Local Edge Radio (880 The Revolution), we had a caller who identified himself as conservative. That doesn’t bother me — I’m happy to talk to people who disagree with me as long as we keep the conversation civil.

“I was born in 1969, so I remember the tail end of the Vietnam thing,” he said. “All you liberals spat on the soldiers when they came home.”

I had news for him: We did not. I was born in 1952 and I had a lot of friends who went to that war. Some didn’t come home; most came home much different people than the ones who left.

I mentioned I’m a Christian and he broke in. “A Christian and  a Democrat? Ain’t no such thing!”

Blake cut him off, but I was deeply offended.

I spent the Vietnam war writing to men I didn’t know and sending care packages so they would know someone back home was thinking about them and praying for their safe return.

When I lived in Rockland County, NY, one of my good friends was Jerry Donnellan, who now heads the Veterans’ Services Agency in the county.

“I ‘m good,” he said when I called him today. “I got me a government job. Of course, it was my first government job that led to the need for this government job.”

Jerry came home with three Purple Hearts and minus a leg. He is one of the funniest people I know, and to hear him tell the story of his second Purple Heart made me laugh till I cried. He was shot by a sniper, but a ration can of pineapple chunks saved his life.

“I thought I was gone,” he says. “I felt my chest and there was a warm, sticky liquid. I couldn’t look. But then I looked at my hand and there wasn’t any blood. That sonofabitch  had ruined my pineapple chunks!”

In the end, Jerry took out the sniper. A few months later, he stepped on a land mine and blew off half his leg.

My friend, Jerry Donnellan, a Vietnam Vet, wasn't spat on when he returned home; in fact, a he counts a whole lot of liberals as his friends. He is receiving an honorary doctorate from Dominican College in Rockland County, NY

So, as the liberal old friend of an old Vietnam soldier, I figured I could ask Jerry whether he knew any liberal people who care about veterans.

“There are plenty of conservatives who wave the flag and don’t do anything more,” Jerry said. “My father used to say you have to watch out for someone waving a flag because he had a stick and could be dangerous.”

Jerry and other vets came back from Vietnam and they founded Vietnam Vets against the War.

“We didn’t join the traditional peace groups because there were people among them who thought we all were war criminals,” he said. “But most of us were drafted.”

Jerry once told me he “still had pieces of my mama’s porch under my fingernails when I got there.”

During the Vietnam War, those with connections (George W. Bush and Dan Quayle among them) got into the National Guard and didn’t have to risk their lives on the front lines; they stayed stateside. Today, however, National Guard men and women serve two, three — up to six — deployments. The soldier who opened fire on Afghan civilians last week was in his fourth deployment. After all that, he likely will face the death penalty.

“Can you imagine how much sooner this thing would have ended if there had been a draft?” Jerry asked. “But you don’t see college campuses erupting because their lives aren’t at risk. Back during Vietnam if you were warm and not pregnant, you got drafted.

“But we came back and we formed Vietnam Veterans against the war. … We were saying, ‘We went, we fought your stupid war and now we’re back to tell you it’s wrong. Stop it.'”

People who go to war come back changed, Jerry said.

“Imagine being taken away from your family and sent anywhere for a year, let alone being sent to war,” he said. “Then imagine it happening four or five times. You come home changed each time. It’s a lot to ask.”

My heart is, and always has been, with the men and women who risk their lives to fight the stupid wars our politicians get us into. They are heroes, and I am deeply offended when someone says I don’t support them.

Don’t assume that because I’m liberal that I hate soldiers and don’t believe in the redemptive power of Jesus.  Don’t make assumptions about me, don’t call me names and I’ll show the same respect toward you.

 

 

Black tag of courage or a Liberal learns about war

I was a Paramedic in the Air Force in the early 90’s.  Joining the military was one of the better decisions I have made in my almost 50 years and even at the old age of 27, the training I went through gave me a wealth of discipline I previously did not have. There’s a plethora that I completely disagree with in how our military personal are utilized, but I was lucky to be at their disposal before the right wing, corporate quest for empire began to pick up speed in earnest.  Pretending to assist the wounded and pick up dead soldiers on the battlefield is all fun and games until it really happens.

The Air Force Medical Core / Paramedic training was (at that time) conducted at Shepard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas. I love Wichita Falls, but that’s another post. We slept in tents, ate MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) out of plastic pouches plucked out of 55 gal. drums of boiling water, rescued the pilots of a long forgotten war from their rusting C-2 Greyhound and learned about triage. The pic to the left was taken during my time at the Med Red (Medical Readiness) training grounds somewhere near or on Shepard Air force Base.

The one and only time I ever argued with a superior officer was in triage class over the black tag. In the military they call the black tag “expectant” and in the civilian world the term “morgue” is used.  The protocol for the black tag soldier was a simple one… pain meds until dead. How could anyone not do all that could be done to treat all the wounded, no matter how badly they were injured, I asked? To the instructor’s credit he was very kind to me as he explained that war is not about helping the few, it’s about helping the many. Maybe I was not the first bleeding heart liberal he ever had in his class. That was probably lesson one for me on my way to seeing what all soldiers probably know, even the person of peace is sometimes called upon to fight and die for it. A person who hates war must sometimes wage war to stop it. Until humans decide to deal with our differences differently, create a world where despots have no place and stop ignoring that our precious freedoms depend on all of us finding our common ground and contributing what we can to that common good… there will always be bloodshed.

I wrote the following letter to the editor of my conservative, East Tennessee town in early October, 2004. It was my first act of publicly putting my thoughts in front of the Republican faithful. I didn’t get lynched and a couple of people even told me, in confidence of course, that they felt the same way.

The Policy is not the Soldier

A Memorial Day flashback to October 2004

The Republican party would have you believe that their policy is the Soldier. They would prefer that no one make the distinction between their personal agenda and the Soldier that dies in Iraq.  As Mr. Bush’s comments clearly stated: that would simply send the wrong message, “mixed messages” to our brave troops.  How indeed could they follow a leader of questionable intent, morals and leadership?

How indeed? The Republican Party’s story is that this is all about freedom, bringing democracy to the middle east and fighting terrorists wherever they may be.  Those of us who don’t believe that story is entirely true are considered by many as un-patriotic and un-supportive of our sons and daughters fighting and dying in Mr. Bush’s war.

Every person that I meet who cannot allow my right to that opinion has cited the same sentiment, that it disrespected the soldier. No! The Soldier and the policy are not the same thing.

As a Gulf war veteran, I respect those who have chosen to protect our country. I do not respect a commander and chief that would spill their blood for profit, power and a personal vendetta while lying about it.

This president seriously underestimated the consequences of his actions; he will not admit his error in judgement and he hoping that Americans will not be able to separate his failed policy and premature actions from the brave men and women he put in harm’s way.

The spin is relentless in keeping the idea going that one cannot disagree with poor decision-making without disrespecting the troops, and sadly, it seems to be working.  I imagine Mr. Bush and his cronies having a good laugh at just how much the American people are willing to swallow.  And after numbing us out with the unprecedented fear this administration generated in the wake of 9/11, the religious right was waiting to take us all in and show us the error of our ways and their path to salvation.  The path of writing discrimination into the constitution, the path of altering the idea of separation of church and state, the path of intolerance and judgement.

The right to disagree, the right to speak out belong to us all for the moment. Even Mr. Bush and his ilk have the right to express themselves under the same principles, but they do not have the right to legislate for their own purposes and enrichment. It is our duty as informed citizens to keep them in check for the day they overtake us the “other” terrorists will be the least of our worries.  that will be the day none of us are free any longer, not even the right-wing, Republican, Moral majority, Christian Coalition, NRA life member.

Happy Memorial Day and Peace Y’all

 

 

Ed and me

Me and Ed Shultz at this morning's brunch before the show this afternoon.

Radio talk show host Ed Schultz came to Asheville today. Naturally, I was there.

I was on Ed’s radio show a few months after my son died, telling his story, and Ed called me back the next day to talk more.

Thanks to Health Care for America Now, I was booked onto his television show a month before the health care bill was passed.

I adore Ed because he was one of the only people in the media to keep talking about health reform when everyone else thought there was no possibility of anything passing.

He talked day after day about the immorality of our system and the need for reform. He was relentless.

I got to thank him on national radio today.

During a break, Ed told us about his conversion from conservative to liberal, and about how he feels a moral obligation to tell the truth as so much of the media is owned by conservative corporations. Ed is a man who’s usually rather brash and boisterous, but he was very soft-spoken as he talked about his mission, and about how he feels called to do this.

Big Eddie is a mush. I saw him weep after hearing a story about a young mother of twins who’s a half-million dollars in debt because her insurance company cancelled her policy without telling her when she developed problems in her pregnancy.

This afternoon, he asked how many of us wanted to see the photos of a deal bin Laden; most of us said no, and he laughed. He talked about why President Obama deserves credit for the slaying of bin Laden, obviously amused that Obama did in three years what Bush couldn’t do in seven.

It was a great afternoon. Several of us in the audience talked afterward about how his energy exhausted us. He’s funny, he’s smart, and I’m really glad he’s there for us.