Page 14 THE VILLADOM TIMES IV • November 21, 2012 seems they always blunder. Oddly enough, every time the politicians stumble, they always recover their posture with money clenched in both fists. The cover-ups may not work too much longer. At the time of Pearl Harbor, the average American’s education was high school or less and red-blooded men and boys fell for the idea that nobody in Washington expected the “sneak attack” the men in Washington helped provoke. The veterans I spoke to years later all knew. I have interviewed a large number of Pearl Harbor veterans, and most of them said bluntly that they had been set up and were still angry about it. Most mainstream publishers will not touch that with a 10-foot pole. Today, the average white American male over 60 has one or more college degrees. Many have lived or served overseas in the military or studied there, and they all know the score: Bombing half of Asia back to the Stone Age because our own people at home were made to feel threatened did not make us a lot of friends in Asia or, for that matter, in Europe. String-pullers in New Deal Washington used to get us into wars with any country that was -- how ironic -- anticommunist. In the reversal under Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy got us into wars with countries where the communists subsidized revolts against locally hated despots. Communists ignored the despotism they inflicted on the folks at home. Fulgencio Batista was not Mr. Popularity in mob-ruled Cuba. The fact that weapons were the only things the Soviet Bloc could manufacture that anyone else wanted was probably a major incentive for this handout program. In the second half of the 20th century -- the years when British, French, and Dutch colonialism collapsed -- the shot heard around the world was fired from an AK-47. However, communism was an odious and obnoxious system, and the rebels knew it, took the guns, smiled, and then dropped out of communism and asked America for money. Soviet communism succumbed to internal combustion and to resistance movements in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, the Baltic States, the Ukraine, and Russia itself. The people and money we threw away supporting dictators in countries with no global profile or economic importance had little or nothing to do with the long-awaited and very welcome collapse of communism. The rest of the world is not going to honor our veterans. We need to honor them. With communism dead, we need to honor them at home because they serve no useful purpose in Germany, Japan, or South Korea except to irritate the people who live there. I recently watched “Religion and Ethics” on PBS, and learned about a group called “The Mission Continues.” This group was founded by recent combat veterans who discovered that, once the injured and discharged veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan recovered, the first thing they wanted to do was something to help America -- and help justify their own existence. This group awards fellowships to veterans who want to work in social service in the United States. The numbers indicate that 88 percent of those being helped have served in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both, and 86 percent of those who qualified and completed their orientation have transferred the skills they learned to civilian employment. Ninety-one percent have begun networking to find future employment. The group is supported by donations from a couple of corporations. Based on the conversations of those interviewed, these veterans are people who hoped to do a full 20 years and retire with a pension into a minimum-wage job that could then support them, but were side-tracked by physical wounds, illness, or post-traumatic stress disorder. A lot of people who have had a rough war in Iraq and Afghanistan have come home to a tough economy. What sort of missions can these brave and reliable veterans accomplish? Here’s one: putting power lines under ground so we don’t have to cancel Halloween or Election Day every year. The people I saw in the PBS documentary looked strong and resilient, accustomed to team work and following any reasonable order, and they could get the job done. Somebody I spoke to said underground electrical and telephone wiring could cost $1 million a mile. The veterans could probably get it done for a whole lot less, and I would much rather see taxpayers’ money contribute to the feeding and shelter of combat veterans learning a trade than I would seeing the money spent to invade places where the locals have offended the Washington lobbyists. Since the same people who are upping their carbon footprint and cutting down trees are the ones with Washington lobbyists, we will be much better off depending on the veterans than the politicians. The veterans showed that, when the chips were down, they would risk their lives for America. They have integrity. The Chinese ideograph for “crisis” is composed of two free-standing characters: one means “danger” and the other means “opportunity.” The United States now faces a danger and an opportunity: How do we convince the vast majority of brave and honorable U.S. veterans that we respect their service and that America still has a place for them? Some of my friends came back to the United States after service in Vietnam. The soldiers and Marines did not “lose” the war, since they were holding more ground at the armistice than they had held when they started, the casualties inflicted on the other side were astronomically higher than the casualties we sustained in battle, and the terms that were worked out would have worked if either the North Vietnamese or the South Vietnamese had been running an establishment as orderly as Switzerland or Sweden. This did not happen. A few years after the truce, the North Vietnamese staged a North Korean-style invasion with Soviet tanks and the South Vietnamese made a break for the landing craft. I tutored some of the escapees. Based on what I heard from them, and from a friend who spoke Vietnamese, the whole thing was hopeless from Square One and our involvement was a mistake. One colonel I spoke with told me he thought the South Vietnamese could have held off the North Vietnamese if they hadn’t learned to fight American style – with huge expenditures of ammunition and transport by trucks. “The ammunition ran out, the trucks broke down, and the communists won,” he said. He hated communists and estimated that he had killed about 200 because they had killed his father. He was a friend of mine, but he was not grateful to the United States. The U.S. politicians covered up for one another after this hopeless war, and the guys who risked their necks were denounced as “fascist mercenaries” or “baby killers” by big healthy guys who dodged the draft. Today’s returning veterans may be faced with a similar mess. The latest news indicates that a four-star general has “gone Hollywood” and that a war criminal is facing the death penalty for the mass murder of civilians. One selfstyled war casualty claimed a rocket-propelled grenade hit had made him suffer. It would kill the average person. It turned out that he had been deployed, but had never seen combat. Rape without reference to gender appears to have become a way of life for at least some service personnel. I learned the statistics from the American Legion magazine I receive as a stateside veteran. Yet most veterans are not villains or buffoons. They are victims of their own courage and idealism. The whole country was tired of this war years ago, but because corporate and foreign lobbyists want us to be there, the talking heads we elect to office, and the ones who run for office and do not make it, will keep us there was long as possible. Many veterans just do not understand this. In the long run, we are sure to be faced with a civilian army of bitter, disgruntled veterans: those who were not killed or disabled, but risked their necks and wasted many years of their lives because the politicians blundered, as it Helping veterans to help the nation Ramsey Pass it on... Lynn Novak, media center specialist at Ramsey’s Eric S. Smith Middle School, and the Eighth Grade Book Club organized a new and gently-used Book Drive that was held during the month of October. Over 30 boxes of book were collected throughout the month. The books will be donated to Ramapo Readers, a club at Ramapo College that distributes books to schools and community programs in New Jersey and to Prospect Park School #1. The Eighth Grade Book Club has 18 students who are eager to share their enthusiasm for reading with others. They hope to connect with Prospect Park School #1 again this year through a joint club experience.