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Sept. 2, 2004 The thing that is most disturbing about this political season, and the last one as well, is the divide that has happened in our nation. It truly has turned into brother against brother and if you don’t fathom that for an instant then just take a look at the veteran against Kerry ads that are on the television. Both sides acknowledge that Kerry did in fact go to Viet Nam as a volunteer and yet they accuse him of sellingout when he came home and spoke out against a war that most veterans I know who were there still have night mares about. I wonder what Norm would think of all of this noise? Norm was a Navy Seal. He was in Nam from 63-66 having done three tours. He was one of the first American service men into Viet Nam as an ‘advisor,’ I met Norm in the hospital as they were one more time trying to find veins in his legs that would be sufficient to carry blood to his kidneys. It is a procedure called re-mapping and Norm had been re-mapped about a dozen times. During the three years I knew Norm I shared his room as a patient twice, I didn’t ask for the privilege it just happened that way…anyway Norm and I would crack jokes about the nurses while they had him hooked up to a dialysis machine for three hours every other day. It seems that some parasite that he picked up while swimming in the rivers of Nam finally took its toll and. was slowly finishing him off. By the time he died his legs had been amputated and his heart just gave out after five years worth of surgery. He may have had a weakened immune system but it was something that the base cause of which came from his time in South East Asia. Let me tell you about the true tragedy of all of this; the government that sent Norm to Viet Nam as a twenty year old had abandoned him as a fifty year old. He could not get timely medical service from the VA; he could not get disability either from the VA or the social security system. The former because “his problems were not service connected” and the latter because he had not paid enough in to receive any benefit. Yeah Norm skirted the system a lot, not because he wanted to but as an independent contractor he did what he had to do to make ends meet. When I met him he was just about at the lifetime cap on his medical insurance and he was not sure how he was going to pay for the treatment that was keeping him alive, he had too many assets to qualify for Medicaid or food stamps and he was to young for Medicare. He had a house and two cars. All of his children were independent so he could not claim them. Norm was of the mind that Clinton was ok to have done what his conscience told him just as I am sure he would have been ok with Kerry having gone and come back in less than a year. He probably would have thought Bush was smart for having gone into the National Guard and Cheney was smart as well for having gotten five student deferments. Norm told me that after awhile the killing became routine and that he never saw a purpose other than he went where he was told to go and did what he was trained to do and that if one did not have to go through war then it was better for them; “War ruins men” he said once. Sounds like the voice of experience to me. I doubt very much that he would have been ok with combat veterans taking out ads against other combat veterans to meet a political goal. Norm would have looked at their records and decided his stand according to his conscience. Norm died last year and there had to be a spaghetti dinner to come up with the money to bury him and that my friends is one of the many tragedies of our generation. Another is that we still allow that damn war to separate us; divide us along lines that have shifted and changed over the last forty years. Doesn’t anyone remember those days; days of unrest about both foreign and domestic issues? Yet we are allowing them to still divide us. We are rancorous towards each other and hateful towards Americans that don’t hold the same concept of what it is to be American. Yes I am not a fan at all of the direction the nation has taken since the attack of 9/11 yet I find many reasons to allow for the opinion of them who think we are on the right track. But this courtesy does not seem to extend from the conservatives to the more liberal of their brethren. Is it so hard to believe that your concepts of family values and morays for the nation are just that your concept and your right to have them but what is the difference between you and any of the ayatollahs in the mid east when you attempt to force them on me? Do you think you sway me with vitriol? Do you think that because there is venom laid at my feet that I will suddenly turn from my philosophy of live and let live? Believe me, in this nation there is room enough for all even those who do not agree that that we should all be thumping a bible and trying to sway God to our side of a fight. Speaking on the issue of God for a moment; how is that objective truth is determined by subjective reason? I always thought that truth was truth no matter what anyone said of it; yet I have not heard anyone here or anywhere else tell me truth that was not tainted by subjectivity. The best of truths are one discovered by the individual with help from the Creator and without interference from teachers, pastors, prophets or, apostles especially ones who drive expensive cars and live in better houses than the flock they are fleecing. I am not asking for a stop to the diatribes; that is your right to hold whatever opinion your reason has led you to. What I am asking is that instead of barking at the moon you tell me why I should believe in your cause and your man. I have to go where the president leads whether I want to or not; just like Norm did all those years ago. But I am still waiting after four years for the gloating to stop and the reason to take over. Why should I like the direction the nation has taken? Why should I like war that is making ten thousand more Norms? Why should I like the loss of nearly three million jobs that are being replaced with jobs that pay much less and have fewer if any benefits? Why should I like the fear I see in the lives of them who can not find work and have burned through their savings and are now down to the credit cards for sustenance? It simply seems that it is the minority of people who have benefited from this Bush administration and the promise of things getting better in a second term ring hollow, the wealth is not trickling or dribbling or even dripping down to your fellow Americans and I would like someone of you who say they know to tell me when times will be better. As an American I am posing these questions to other Americans who want me to believe that they know what’s best for OUR country. ------------ About the author: Mark C. Durfee is an independent conservative liberal hedonist Christian Bhuddist deveotee of Krishna who follows no crowds and who thinks that the Viagra commercial with Freddy Mercury singing while a bunch of men dance is funny. His novels are nothing like his articles and they cannot be found at Barnes and Noble or Walden books, Amazon.com or your local independent bookstore because he has not been discovered. His favorite saying is "Duck!!! That drive-by may have your name on it!" Email: mcd5255@hotmail.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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