Leaving Las Vegas

Sometimes you're the windshield
Sometimes you're the bug
Sometimes it all comes together baby
Sometimes you're just a fool in love
--The Bug, Mary Chapin Carpenter

I move around a lot,
not because I'm looking for anything really,
but 'cause I'm getting away from things
that get bad if I stay

--Five Easy Pieces (1970)

Everybody knows
this is nowhere.
Everybody, everybody knows
Everybody knows
--(Everybody Knows) This is Nowhere,
Neil Young
________________

This is about a movie and an entry from my life. It was called The Vietnam War, and our exit from Iraq has been gut-wrenching for me.

The Vietnam War could have been subtitled, "How to Lose a War in Ten Easy Years". Change the Republic of Vietnam to Iraq and my movie is the same as the one that just played out in Baghdad. Try as I may, there is no way to make sense of it, either then or now. And we now have a sequel in which only the name of the country is different.

On March 2, 1971, the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) left RVN and became one of the first major units to exit the war. We left that war much as we started it -- gradually. It was an inexorable build up followed by the inexorable denouement.

The 5th re-deployment was the first time that an entire Special Forces group redeployed from a war zone. This must have been a practice movement foreshadowing the Baghdad embarrassment. The U.S. left Saigon under enemy pressure, the last visuals being U.S. helicopters beating a hasty exit from the North Vietnamese conquerors. The last photo was of a U.S. employee punching a small Vietnamese dude in the face to get a seat out.

Nice way to end a war. 58,000 of us died and 300,000+ were wounded, and the last image is one of our citizens punching a local in the face; what a cosmic joke! December 18, 2011, the U.S. left behind a Trillion+ dollar war, and this time we got the punch (Last U.S. Troops Leave Iraq). As one trooper wryly observed, they'll be having one hell of a yard sale over our left behind materiel.

For this and more we would like to tell Mr. Bush et. al -- Heckuva job, Georgie! How can we retain as nation any dignity following episodes like this?

It is a sad day when one is embarrassed to call himself an American.