The Senator's plane has crashed

Albert Eisele who in past lives worked for the Pioneer Press Washington Bureau and wrote a dual biography of Hubert Humphrey [the real one] and Eugene McCarthy wrote about the death of Senator Ernest Lundeen.

Like Paul Wellstone, Lundeen died in an airplane crash, but I had never realized that there was so much mystery about the 1940 crash in Virginia. Lundeen was an isolationist, something we never seem to see much of any more. And he was the last major office holder the Farmer-Labor Party had, so it is probably in order if somebody speculates on what might have been.

Link

Normandy was a stop on the way TO Germany

Our president is going to Normandy tomorrow. I am sure that he will say all the right things that we expect any president, regardless of party, to say.

And I am sure that his comments will be worth calling to our attention.

But why is he going to Germany first?

It has been the practice of our presidents to go to Germany whenever they go to Europe. Ronald Reagan even caught heat from conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer when he visited German SS graves on the same trip as he commemorated the fortieth anniversary of D-Day.

I know that we live in a different world now.

But this combining of trips seems to be a slap in the face of our WWII vets and the people who knew or loved them. Would it hurt to do the German visit on a different trip?

June 13 -- Viet Nam vet day

Saturday, June 13, has been designated as the day for Minnesota to honor Viet Nam veterans. Venues are Central Presbyterian Church and the Capitol complex. Details can be found at http://www.mnhonorsvietnamvets.org/program/index.htm.

As I have noted before Viet Nam vets and those who did not return have been ignored like no other group of United States veterans. We seem to forget that they did not choose the ridiculously dreamed up event to which they were summoned or the coercion called Selective Service which put so many of them there.

Last year we had a similar day in March. I am not sure why the difference, but what I posted then can be seen at http://ccmusings.blogspot.com/2008/03/in-honor-of-viet-nam-veterans.html.

St. Joseph's Day note

Today is St. Joseph’s Day. In some places it has been an occasion to wear red and parade and it is the traditional day the swallows return to Capistrano.

It was also the day when Mama D served her free dinner for the poor, although she only made it to St. Patrick’s Day this time.

But for the last six years it has also been the anniversary [U.S. time] of the American aggression in Iraq which is becoming the Twenty-first Century Viet Nam.

So rest well, Mama D and rest well, all of our unnecessary war victims [Iraqi, American, and others].

The birds will still fly.

Administration's Veterans U-turn

The Obama administration is backing off the suggestion to charge veterans for their health care.  It only seems fair that when we ask people to surrender their personal civil liberties for a period of time and take extraordinary risk limb and life that we honor whatever we promised them before we got them to do so. 

Two observations come immediately: 

1.  We never factor in this cost when we decide to go to war.  We really need to do better accounting before we become so internationally adventurous. 

2.  From 1945 until 1993 only one president did not have military experience.  Since then we have had two draft dodgers and one who was not old enough to be subject to a draft.  It seems likely that with our volunteer military that it may be a long time before another veteran becomes president.  This is neither good nor bad per se, but it will not be hard to understand when veterans become uneasy in the next decade or two.

November 11

1ovember 11 brings to mind that life is dangerous. If we don’t create havoc to ourselves, nature may to it to us.

Last year on this date, I posted on both Veterans’ Day and the Armistice Day blizzard. Nothing much has changed.

The links are

http://ccmusings.blogspot.com/2007/11/veterans-day-observations.html

http://ccmusings.blogspot.com/2007/11/armistice-day-blizzard.html

August 9 -- A date to keep in mind

Today marks the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, the second [and last so far and we hope forever] time a nuclear weapon has been used in international combat.

People often note the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima three days earlier but overlook this anniversary.

This may be a mistake. Historians have been arguing for sixty-three years whether President Truman made the correct decision in bombing both of these cities and history usually vindicates him, both because of the Japanese intransigence and because we know now that neither Truman nor anybody else had a full appreciation of the long-term effect of radiation.

Admittedly, it was not until after the dropping of the second bomb that the Japanese agreed to seek peace, but it does make me wonder if it was so necessary to drop the second one so soon. The jury seems to be still out on that one.

In the meantime we remain the only country to have ever used a nuclear weapon in wartime, although anybody under eighty-something can profess personal innocence. Let us hope that we remain the only country to ever use a nuclear weapon in wartime.

Peace.

In honor of Viet Nam veterans

The legislature has proclaimed today Viet Nam Veterans Appreciation Day. While at the rate we get into wars may soon give us more occasions for veterans’ appreciation than we have days on the calendar, this gesture seems to make sense and was overdue. So let’s give today proper attention.

I have been around for a while. Some of the people I have known were killed in Viet Nam. I have been to the funerals of both war victims and veterans and have shared sympathy with survivors.

Every generation seems doomed to have its war. Some wars seem to unify the country; others divide it; yet others seem to bring about a sense of ennui.

People of my parents’ generation fought World War Two. Records show that the soldiers and sailors returning from there were greeted by a grateful nation. I remember seeing my cousin off to and back from Korea when I was a young boy and know that the whole extended family was glad to see him. I was too young to appreciate anything like national sentiment, but have suspected that, likely because the war never really ended and the survival of our republic had never been seen as so directly challenged, their reception was somewhat less enthusiastic than that received by the World War Two vets, but that individual veterans were relatively well received.

We seem to have done a better job of welcoming those retuning from Desert Storm and even those coming back from our present adventures/misadventures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Bosnia.

But somewhere the Viet Nam vet never quite got the appreciation those before or since have received. You would sometimes read about a vet being spit upon at the airport when he returned or having his family called by strangers suggesting that he was some kind of war criminal.

American participation in the Viet Nam war was unjustified from the beginning, but that doesn’t mean that those who had to go there thought it was a good idea. They were mainly people who had been conscripted or enlisted to avoid conscription, disproportionately working class and minority people. They did what they were told to do and generally did it quite well. But it wasn’t their idea.

I have my own personal story of one man’s return from Viet Nam which still gives me pause.

It had to be about 1971, give or take a year. I was driving cab and picked up a young man at the airport. He was carrying an Army duffel bag [or whatever they call one of those in the Army – I am not good on military vernacular] and gave me a destination off Highway 55 in Mendota Heights or Eagan.

While I was driving him there, I learned that he had just returned from Viet Nam. We did a little small talk about how he must be glad to be back and what a nice, sunny day he had for his return. It seemed me to be a sign of something wrong that nobody had come to greet him, but I don’t remember saying anything about it to him. And for all I know he had been wishing to surprise his kith and kin so had not told them the details of his arrival.

When we go to his house, I went to the trunk to retrieve his bag and noticed that there was a shirtless man who looked like he was probably the younger man’s father who was mowing the lawn.

The young man said something to the effect of “hello” and the older man stopped his mowing long enough to address him by name and say something like, “Oh, you’re back.”

The younger man took his bag on past the older guy who had resumed mowing and went toward the house.

I don’t know whether the man was indeed the young man’s father or not. He could have been a neighbor, relative, or family friend, but he obviously knew the guy and must have known where he had been.

But he couldn’t even stop mowing that lawn long enough to help him in or offer anything more than perfunctory greetings. That lawn didn't look that high.

If there were a Cheney Library would it have any books?

I have strayed into national matters more than I ever intended to when I started this thing. Of course, in a presidential year, it is hard not to.

When I read this column by former GOP Congressperson Mickey Edwards [“Betraying constitutional — and conservative — principles”] in today's DPP this afternoon, I thought it probably deserved some notice, but had other things I wanted to post about today. But when I checked the computer the next time I found that I had a comment [from somebody whose comments I don’t think I have had before] to my March 19 post Iraq-Five Years which also calls attention to this column.

So I am putting the comment into this separate post along with the URL to the column. I really have no further comment. I think both the comment and the column speak for themselves.

This morning in the Saint Paul paper was an editorial about a recent interview with VP Cheney. The interviewer prefaced his question with a statement about the extremely negative mood of most of the country toward the war.

Cheney's response was "So?"

How disconnected from reality is this administration?

Posted by Vic to Capitol City Musings at March 28, 2008 9:25 AM

The column is at http://www.twincities.com/opinion/ci_8719696

Iraq -- five years

In 2003 President Bush the Second chose St. Joseph’s Day of 2003 for the American invasion of Iraq. Of course, it is a shame that he chose any day for this venture.

In 1983, two days after American marines died in a barracks bombing in Lebanon, President Reagan sent troops into Grenada to reinstall a British governor and preserve our nutmeg supply. After it was over in a few hours and with American eyes no longer on Lebanon, he called Margaret Thatcher and told her, “Surprise, look what I’ve done for you.”

And Americans acclaimed him for it.

A few years later President Bush the First ordered the invasion of Panama to catch a drug dealer.

And Americans mostly acclaimed him for it.

I am not sure who W thought he was going to impress with the invasion of Iraq which has taken such a huge toll in lives and wealth from Iraqis, Americans, and others with Iraqis, Americans, and others continuing to perish with no end to the horror in sight.

And, even though most Americans question the call [now], many still acclaim him for the invasion.

And that’s a problem, the whole world’s problem.

Veterans Day Observations

Eighty-nine years ago the “War to End All Wars” came to an end with an armistice on November 11. Anniversaries came to be known as “Armistice Day.”

After another World War, Congress decided that if wars were to become this common that there just weren’t enough dates to have holidays for each and changed the name to “Veterans’ Day” so it could commemorate the fighting men and women of all the wars our country gets itself into.

The War to End All Wars did not do the job.

During most of our wars, including our present aggression in Iraq, the government has begged us to “support our troops” and, as a rule, the American public has done a fairly good job.

But as Paul Wellstone noted, we do not do nearly as good a job of supporting our veterans as we do supporting our troops.

Viet Nam may be the best example of our negligence there.

I remember picking up a young man in about 1970 at the airport who wanted to get home to Mendota Heights or Eagan. [I don’t remember exactly where. It was off Highway 55 someplace.] The man told me he had just returned from Viet Nam. We did not discuss the matter much, but he made it clear that he was glad to be back. I remember being dragged out of bed early one morning when I was about five to go to an airport to see my cousin return from some strange place called “Korea” and I did wonder why he had to take a taxicab home from the airport.

What I really remember was what happened when we got to the house. When we arrived there was a middle-aged man mowing the front lawn. As I was removing the luggage from the trunk, the older man said to the younger man something to the effect of “Oh, you’re back” and returned to mowing while the soldier picked up his gear and went on up to the house.

I have always assumed that the older man was the returning soldier’s father, but never knew for certain. But it seems that if he were something else – uncle, neighbor, cousin, whomever -- that he still must have known where the man had been and could have given a better greeting. Usually when I have taken somebody with luggage home or to visit their kinfolk, whoever is waiting has offered to help with toting the gear.

Even to a war opponent like I was, it seemed strange. After all, the Viet Nam military was made up of conscripted men and men who enlisted to avoid conscription. In all wars, it seems to be the old who decide that young must fight.