THE WAR NEVER ENDS FOR VIETNAM VETERANS

               VIETNAM VETERANS  FINDING A LASTING PEACE

  Vietnam was, as author Bernard Fall once dubbed it, “Hell in a very small place.”  We Vietnam veterans live out our lives still nursing our war memories and PTSD, witnessing the arrival of a new enemy to our peace and psychological freedom.  With the vision of 20/20 hindsight we understand that we didn’t have to wage war against North Vietnam and the Vietcong to get our athletic equipment and shoes manufactured there; we didn’t have to attack Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein, creating a destabilization of the Near East that has spawned the nightmarish phenomenon of ISIS.  Today, the world is confronted with an enemy, building in strength in a culture of people, as Senator John McCain has suggested, “that don’t like us very much,” and enemy against which, unlike Vietnam, negotiations for Peace are not an option.  It is a bleak, uncertain future when the adversary is committed to Never give up dying trying to kill you.  This is the world we pass on to our grandchildren, besides confessing to them that the Tooth Fairy, the Eastern Bunny and Santa Claus are dead, but life is for the living; those of us still waking up each day to a fresh sun must see the Blessing in that and share our love and compassion for others throughout our daily walk. 

Coca Cola Corporation recently presented its annual Salute to Veterans' Day program at the corporate headquarters in Atlanta, Ga. and introduced the audience to the Wounded Warrior musical group MusiCorps. I was moved to tears witnessing the incredible will and determination of these inspired musicians who had been wounded, some double amputees, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The beauty of their music stimulated my reflection on how human beings can be subjected to the worst trauma of war, dying and injury to emerge with a spirit for enduring catastrophic injury to still make beautiful music. It is truly a testament to the Possibility living within the Human Spirit for survival.  But we must go on living our lives.

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

 

 

 

Coca Cola Corporation recently presented its annual Salute to Veterans' Day program at the corporate headquarters in Atlanta, Ga. and introduced the audience to the Wounded Warrior musical group, MusiCorps. With tear filled eyes I  witnessed the incredible will and determination of these inspired musicians who had been wounded, some double amputees, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The beauty of their music stimulated my reflection on how human beings can be subjected to the worst trauma of war, dying and injury to emerge with a spirit for enduring catastrophic injury to still make beautiful music. It is truly a testament to the Possibility living within the Human Spirit for survival.

 

 

 

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

IS THE PAST OUR FUTURE?

                   ARE WE CREATING THE FUTURE WE DESIRE?

Here in the most technically advanced country in the world, we exist in witness of our failure to maintain the shining example of the societal model.  We reside in such close proximity to our decline that alternative, enlightened practices get lost in the assumption that life is just the way it is. The speed and blur of the pace of our living blinds us to the exit ramps of positive change that we are missing.  We are a multi-layered society that is bogged down with parochial vested interest, the remedies for which remain elusive in a deepening quagmire of numbness to our circumstances.

The morality bar barely has light beneath it and the ground. The slow media and entertainment seduction continues un-noticed and unabated. “Normal” TV has co-opted our potential for beneficial options competing with cable for the outrageousness of decadence disguised as art, inclusiveness, political correctness, and the democratic principles of a free and open society. It’s a No Holds Barred, Nothing Is Sacred, Everything’s in Play society we are crafting.

Lost in the mania for glitter and gold, parents, too many single, scramble for lifestyles that are unaffordable, while their children become proficient at self-governance and little respect for parents or authority that have abdicated the throne of leadership responsibility. Would be couples are increasingly lost in the vertigo of what is Normal in relationship; genetic predisposition has been usurped by social prerogative, which has transformed “alternative lifestyles” into the natural order. With the increasing ubiquity of Ron and Shaun, Betty and Bobbie, the expectation that affairs must be a part of the conjugal reality is shattering the potential for lasting, committed relationships that were pre-doomed to demise, absent the establishment of meaningful connections and compatibilities before launching into commitment, the justification for which is blurred by premature physical intimacy. The relationship airplane takes off before couples know who’s on board.

Our voyeuristic predilections, cultivated from living lives in which there is always something missing, leave us anxiously awaiting the next seductive episode of “Empire,” “Scandal” or the outrageousness of Reality TV, Naked and Afraid and Naked Dating.  The Tube alternative is the ubiquitous Breaking News programing replete with talking head experts unable to ascertain what exactly the problems in the international arena are and, to a lesser extent, what are the solutions to creating a world less threatened by cults of personality living out their own Rosebuds in the global milieu.  Sadly, our latest societal fad, being pursued by lost souls who no one had, or took, the time to notice, is the absorption with glorification of mass murderers, copy-cat slayers obsessed with breaking the slaughter records of previous assassins. That our innocent babies are the tragic victims only seems to up the game points earned by the sick souls doing the slaughtering.  In all the cases of these mass murderers, there were signs, clues and behavioral evidence of isolation in private worlds of mounting madness camouflaged in the neglect of parents and friends, blurred by the crossover into the unreality of violent movies and video games, the new billion dollar businesses in America and the world. 

It’s our world. What will we do to make it better? What empowering difference will we make in our children’s lives? Where will we place the morality bar in our lives? What standards for living our lives will make relationships/marriages stronger, more meaningful and lasting. If we are unwilling to step outside the blur of living to examine our lives, and who we are being in them, we have NO FUTURE, only the Past repeated in the Future. In this short sprint we call our life, what difference will our having passed this way have made in anyone’s life?  We do have a say in the matter but will we muster the vision and courage to stand for Possibility?

The author is a retired airline pilot, Vietnam veteran combat pilot, Mercer University Adjunct Instructor and author of Smoke for Breakfast: A Vietnam Combat Pilot's Story.  Personally signed copies available at:   www.CaptBrianSettles.com