Stop Glorifying The Damned Hell
By David Truskoff
20 May,
2008
Countercurrents.org
The
Fourth
Geneva Convention of 1949 and official US policy require
the protection of civilian non-combatants in wartime
On May 19,2008 I received a
letter from the Secretary Of State of the State of Connecticut. It
said, "This year we are recognizing veterans of World War II
for their exemplary service and unwavering courage. Given your honorable
military service, I am delighted to invite you to attend the Secretary
of State’s Public Service awards ceremony for WWII veterans."
Hot Dog I am still a man. I remember the boys in my sister’s class of 40-41 leaving our town for the military. Most of all I remember the sendoff party at the railroad station and the envy I felt when the girls were all kissing them goodbye.
There is a memorial in the center of town with the names of the many who did not return. I too was to experience the thrilling sendoff experience just a short time later. Yes, there was the thrill of feeling adult and about to do something really important. I had a fairly easy time of it on a ship escorting convoys across the Atlantic. Still, I was welcomed home and treated like a hero. I was a man. Oh, I know, it was easy to rationalize going into the military then. It was the right thing to do we all thought, not knowing much about the pre-war politics that caused it.
One evening after the war, while sitting in bar in Clifton New Jersey with a dear friend, that I had known most of my life and was my high school football idol, tears suddenly appeared on his cheeks. He, without warning, began to verbally attack me. I will always remember the words that he spoke through clenched teeth. "You bastard," he shouted. "You will probably enjoy the next one and the next one." He had to be restrained and finally hospitalized. I told the doctors that we never talked about the war so I wasn’t sure of what had triggered the outburst. The doctors told me that it had nothing to do with me and that my friend would simply be listed as a patient, but not a war casualty. I found out later that he was part of a group of US soldiers that gunned down unarmed German prisoners and was listed as needing medical help upon his discharge.
William
T. Sherman Union Army General during the American Civil War (1861–)
spoke
to a group of young men and said," Cadets of the graduating class’
‘I’ve been where you are now and I know just how you feel.
It’s entirely natural that there should beat in the breast of
every one of you a hope and desire that some day you can use the skill
you have acquired here.
‘Suppress it! You don’t know the horrible aspects of war. I’ve been through two wars and I know. I’ve seen cities and homes in ashes. I’ve seen thousands of men lying on the ground, their dead faces looking up at the skies. I tell you, war is hell!’
In another
speech Sherman said, " You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm
as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and
the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace
and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting
that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride. You cannot qualify
war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine
it."
On the same day I received the invitation from the Secretary Of State
the Associated Press released a story by CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON
CHANG . The headline was "Thousands killed in 1950 by US's Korean
ally." Notice it does not say US troops.
The story claimed, "The mass executions -- intended to keep possible southern leftists from reinforcing the northerners -- were carried out over mere weeks and were largely hidden from history for a half-century. They were "the most tragic and brutal chapter of the Korean War," said historian Kim Dong-choon, a member of a 2-year-old government commission investigating the killings. Hundreds of sets of remains have been uncovered so far, but researchers say they are only a tiny fraction of the deaths. The commission estimates at least 100,000 people were executed, in a South Korean population of 20 million."
That was almost sixty years ago and the AP is reporting it today.
It took almost 40 years before the whole world would learn of the elite US unit known as "Tiger Force", and its unprovoked attacks on Vietnamese villagers.
Dennis Stout was a military journalist, who watched US soldiers force 35 women and children into a pasture in the heart of Vietnam’s Central Highlands. They were raped and shot. In an atmosphere of madness. Men go mad.
About 5,000 Vietnamese peasants were prevented from growing rice. They were considered enemy because they were supposed to help feed the "Cong." Tiger Force members joined other battalion soldiers in what became a grisly routine: Shooting villagers who stayed in their hamlets.
Mr. Stout said he spotted a sign posted in a command center in the valley with a tally of the dead enemy soldiers: 600. But the numbers of weapons seized totaled only 11. "Most of the dead people were civilians."
"People today don’t believe we could have done this," he said. "But what I saw, I could never forget." .
The My
Lai Massacre resulted in the slaughter of 500 villagers by the Army’s
11th Brigade.
And so we move on to America’s new war.
Atrocities in Iraq: 'I killed innocent people for our government' By Paul Rockwell -- Special to The Sacramento Bee Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, May 16, 2004
"Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey was a hard-core, some say gung-ho, Marine. For three years he trained fellow Marines in one of the most grueling indoctrination rituals in military life - Marine boot camp.
A: I was like every other troop. My president told me they got weapons of mass destruction, that Saddam threatened the free world, that he had all this might and could reach us anywhere. I just bought into the whole thing.
Q: What changed you?
A: The civilian casualties taking place. That was what made the difference. That was when I changed.
Q: Did
the revelations that the government fabricated the evidence for war
affect the troops?
A: Yes. I killed innocent people for our government. For what? What
did I do? Where is the good coming out of it? I feel like I've had
a hand in some sort of evil lie at the hands of our government. I
just feel embarrassed, ashamed about it."
No, I do not think that I will accept the Secretary Of State’s invitation. We have got to stop building the shrines to hell. We have to stop glorifying the damned hell. We have to stop making young people think they have missed something and lost a chance at manhood. Friends and relatives need no memorials to remember their loved ones. The memorials are mainly to prepare the next generation for the next war. Wars that, "began in error and are perpetuated in pride." What we need is a memorial to the truth so future generations can have a chance at ending it once and for all.
