I missed Lileks on Friday, but I'm making up for it now. He discusses what it's like to be his age—my age—with Vietnam potent only in an iconic way:

It was a Symbol and a Warning – a reminder of American failings, not American failure. It was a template, too; every war was seen through the terms of Vietnam, which for us meant THE DRAFT, the ultimate mellow-harsher. Most of my reflexive anti-militarism of the early 80s came not from any deep-seated conviction about the ethics of force, but from a desire to stay in coffeehouses smoking cigarettes and reading books as long as I wanted to. It was selfish and cowardly, but I had a vast body of literature and philosophy to help me convince myself otherwise. As the 80s wore on Vietnam receded in my mind, replaced by fear of nuclear war. That prospect had been a specific terror since I was ten, and I knew it intimately. That one I felt in my gut. Vietnam was a hand-me-down.

Revisiting Vietnam in 2004 seems about as useful as debating the Phillippines war while the troop ships are sending Doughboys to the trenches in France. We have more pressing issues, I think. The news today noted that the men arrested at the Albany mosque were fingered by some documents found at Al-Ansar sites in Iraq, of all places. Iraq! Imagine that. I would sleep better if I could snort sure, itÂ’s a plant and tell myself that itÂ’s all made up, itÂ’s all a joke, a phony show designed to make us look the other way while a cackling cabal of Masons and Zionists figure out how much arsenic they can put in the water next year. (Arsenic: the fluoride of the left.) But no. I am one of those sad little pinheads who think itÂ’s really one war, one foe, with a thousand fronts. And I want us to win.

I do wonder sometimes how much easier life would be if I were like most of my friends, if I could convince myself we weren't locked in a mortal struggle with people who want us to die—not because of anything we did, but because of what we are. But it's not about what's convenient to believe. It's about what's true.

Posted by: Attila at 07:08 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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