Farewell to Arms

I have taken the liberty of stealing from Ernest Hemingway, the title of his 1929 book, Farewell to Arms. Hemingway wrote about the Spanish Civil War, as well as other subjects involving man's battle with the realities of life.

Reared on a large farm in Eastern North Carolina where many centuries previously, Indians hunted for food, I had a large collection of arrowheads. I found an almost perfect Indian ax (since sold online). Early man first fought with stones and handmade axes, then tomahawks was made by extending the ax with a stick, then came swords (I recently sold my large collection of civil war swords) and then guns. Battles between men were much more neurological when they could look one another in the eye. Most of the casualties of WW1 were afflicted with bayonets.

In my lifetime, WW2 until the present, we have seen warfare change totally. First, it was artillery shelling from a great distance, then it was dropping bombs out of airplanes. We never knew the destruction befalling women and children, aged and infirmed, from such distances. Warfare has become impersonal. Then, as in Vietnam and now in the Middle East it is a matter of missiles, shells with depleted uranium, poisons of every description, which not only destroyed the enemy but the enemy's families, the enemy's children and the enemy's homeland making it almost impossible for life.

I have traveled through these Middle Eastern, mostly Muslim countries. Poverty stricken people, goat herds, men riding on donkeys with their wives and children walking behind. Even thirty years ago, at border crossings these people would have all their earthly belongings in large sacks which they carried on their backs...barefoot children walking on frozen ground. We actually have the audacity think these people will love us by making their lives even more miserable than it already is. The two Bushes, father and son, with wealth beyond imagination, brandishing a veneer of conservatism and Christianity, have never known the basics of life but would insult the very name of Jesus Christ by saying they are Christ-like.

Only those who have been involved in a war or seen the results of warfare can understand its horrors. Like the pew warmers, for one hour during the week, they just might hear about hell, but really don't believe anything about it. These same hypocrites may hear about war but don't believe anything about it. They may even see a disabled veteran, blind, wheelchair bound, forever tormented by the sights and sounds of war, further aggravated by an inability to get the health care promised when entering the military service. Only one who has seen the combative attitudes, the insolence of VA employees, will understand my evaluation of this most inept of all government agencies.

One would have thought that Senator Cleveland from Georgia when he was chief VA administrator would have straightened out the VA. The administrators who have followed him have been worse. I understand there is a waiting list now of nearly one million veterans. Nearly two million have been involved in the present warfare. Such disgusting spectacles as the situation at Walter Reed or the homicidal psychiatrist at Ft. Hood will bring into focus matters for which elected members of congress have been warned many times. I don't know which was worse, the black nurse who spat on me while a patient in the hospital or the chief of staff of the Army VA hospital who so objected to my suggestion about having a volunteer guide blind patients through the maze of a VA facility and who told me, “we are just waiting for you to die”.

I am still alive, still able to bring to your attention that there are as many well-paid civilian contractors involved in the present wars as volunteer patriotic service people, who are mostly there because they cannot find a job at home. (I understand that contracted CIA members are paid as much a $35,000 a month. Those of you who are WWII veteran, remember your $21 a month pay.) Mr. “Hope and Change”, global warming, bailout and sell out, ACORN organizing Obama, like his predecessor Mr. “Pervert” Clinton will probably just start shooting missiles at Yemen or some other place while at the same time handing out more millions. The reason the war in Iraq lasted so long and things are back where it all started, we were too busy handing out sandwiches with one hand while shooting at belligerents with the other. The number of vehicles grew in Iraq by 80% after our troops arrived. In my humble opinion, with all due respect, the cars already there, the people should have been put under curfew. How else could the IEDs be hauled around to kill our finest?

Mark Twain said once, “the prettiest site on foreign soil is the appearance of the American flag, on a ship, at an embassy etc.” When traveling the world, I always felt that my country would support me, come for me in case of problems. We have learned to our sorrow, and it cannot be disputed, that we left hundred of MIAs in Vietnam and Laos. Is it not strange that Senator McCain, a supposed war hero, as well as Senator Kerry have tried to block any efforts for rescue? It is reported that some families of MIAs have had, at their own expense, private investigators look into this worst of American shame.

The first president of our country said, “guard against the imposters of pretend patriotism”. Many politicians, poets, and even perverts talk causally about patriotism but when the terrorists, not abroad, not in Israel, here, start striking over and over we will know the privilege of patriotism.

In this Laodicean world, with compromised rules, whether on the employment ladder or getting re-elected, I have known a few real patriots: US Senator John East, US Senator Jesse Helms. I looked straight into the eyes of Senator Helms and said, “the next time there is a war, just catapult large bundles of money towards the enemy.” It seems we have laid down our arms everywhere, in favor of big bucks.