40 Years Ago Today My Cousin Died in Vietnam

January 4, 1967

What a great way to cap off the holiday season and start a new year, huh?

At 20 years old he died in that godforsaken jungle, and for what?

He was just a kid, a kid who thought he was doing something good, changing the world for the better, I never got the chance to ask him if he really believed any of those things, or if he just told himself that to keep his sanity.

He had a fiance, so much life ahead of him. Goals and dreams that he would never accomplish.

His letters were always optimistic. Sure he was looking forward to coming home, but there was some amazing landscapes out there, he said he took all sorts of great pictures and looked forward to showing them to all of us. It really wasn't that bad.

I was 14 when he died, and the oldest of all my siblings. Our families were very close and I looked up to and admired him like an older brother while growing up. His death was just devastating.

Throughout my life I have often thought about where he would be in his. He would be 59 years old today, he would have some kids, maybe even grandchildren.

Officially he was KIA by a VC sniper, but that's not what really killed him. It was the military industrial complex, with warmongers like Lyndon Johnson at the helm. Pride and profit over humanity and justice.

I still harbor a lot of hate for LBJ. As I have grown older I have been able to recognize the good things he accomplished in regards to civil rights and social policy. However I will never forget the blood of tens of thousands of young American men that are on his hands. He never had to "escalate" that damn war, a war he knew could never be won. And I know he occupies a special place in Hell that is reserved just for him.

I feel this anniversary means so much more this year. Here we are in the year 2007, forty years later, and that same military industrial complex is still taking the lives of young people for no good reason. There is talk about a final "surge" and "escalation." Nothing has changed except the scenery.

More than 3000 young American men and women have now died in Iraq. And for what?

I'm sure for many of these people memories of their loved ones will haunt them through every holiday season, and forty years from now I'm sure many will still feel the pain that I and countless others like myself still feel today.

But these are just the ramblings of an old guy, very early in the morning in what I hope is a new beginning for this country.

Here's to you Jimmy, you will always be loved and remembered, and I know you are in a better place. God Bless.

LBJ was heavily connected with the contractor firm Brown & Root. Some dubbed LBJ simply as "the senator from Brown & Root." His relationship with this government contractor go back many years. During Viêtnam, B&R became one of the largest builders of US bases in South Viêtnam. Soldiers and war protesters derided them as "Burn & Loot" during that war.

Since then, B&R merged with another firm and became known as Kellog, Brown & Root. Then, that firm, too, was bought and became a division of none other than Halliburton.

Today, Dick Cheney is the most powerful face of Halliburton in the federal government today, who was once its CEO if I remember correctly. He no longer officially works for them as required by law, but there's a job waiting for him when he finally leaves office, and when he leaves, Halliburton will be tens of billions dollar richer than before the war. It seems war was good to these people.

Those who were not millionaires became millionaires because of this war. Some who were millionaires no doubt will become billionaires before the war in Iraq ends. People like Dick Cheney were biding their time when your brother died 40 years ago. Today, people like Cheney are making money while other brothers are dying.

War, in short, is perhaps one of the most profitable ventures around.

However its not surprising in the least.

He would have been exactly my age, but instead he is forever 20. I can't believe we've done this all over again, only minus the draft. When I look at the photos of the dead and maimed from this war, most of them are younger than my own son and daughter, and it tears me up. The masters of war chew them up and spit them out.

Be at peace, and remember him gently tonight. Be at peace.

Hekate

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NO MAN’S LAND
By Eric Bogle
(recorded by several artists in recent years, including the Clancy Brothers and Peter, Paul & Mary)

How do you do, Private William McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside
And rest for awhile in the warm summer sun?
I’ve been walking all day and I’m nearly done.

And I see by your gravestone your were only 19
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916
Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or Willie McBride was it slow and obscene?

Chorus:
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did the rifles fire o’er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles play the last post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the "Flowers o’ the Forest"?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined
Ad though you died back in 1916
To that faithful heart are you forever 19?

Or are you a stranger without even a name
Forever enclosed behind some glass frame
In an old photograph torn and tattered and stained
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

(Chorus)

But the sun’s shining now on these green fields of France
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance
The trenches have all vanished under the plow
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now

But here in this graveyard it’s still No Man’s Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man’s blind indifference to his fellow man
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned

(Chorus)

And I can’t help but wonder now, Willie McBride
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?

The suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame,
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain
For Willie McBride it all happened again
And again and again and again and again

(Chorus)

You express your sorrow with grace.

More so because in a month and 3 days the 56th anniversary of my brothers death in Korea will be here. And as with your Jimmy, my Billy Mack will not be forgotten.

War, the gift that keeps on giving.