Where would we be today on Vietnam?

The Vietnam War documentary on PBS ending Thursday night has had many intriguing moments through its 10 parts, but I have to admit the moment that will stick in my mind was one bit that aired Tuesday night.

The downtown Chicago memorial to the U.S. military conflict in Vietnam, just off the Chicago River. Photographs provided by Gregory Tejeda

The moment was some footage of a woman, Jan Howard of Nashville, Tenn., whose son, Jimmy, had served in the Army and been killed in combat. Anti-war activists approached her, asking for her support of their cause – figuring that she’d be grief-stricken and they could claim her son’s death was pointless.

HER REACTION, IN the video snippets, was to tell the activists that her son may have died to support their right to protest, but that she’d shoot them dead if they ever approached her again.

Why do I suspect that in this Age of Trump, there were probably some people who viewed the two-week-long documentary who cheered that woman on – and probably wish that she could turn her ire on the ballplayers who now are protesting racial issues as part of sporting events.

In some ways, we need to comprehend the societal split we endured some 50 years ago – back in the days when a large segment of the populace decided our government officials could no longer be trusted to be truthful or honorable in their conduct because of what happened in Vietnam.

One of few spots where S. Vietnam flag still flies

Because much of the societal split we now have dates back to those days. The “hawks” of the ‘60s are now the grandparents of many of the modern-day types who are touting the rancid rhetoric of President Donald J. Trump – whom they see as leading an effort to take back U.S. society from the “doves” who opposed the war all those years ago.

THEY’RE THE BASIS of the “red” states of America, although I suspect if you had told that woman she was a “red,” she really would have pulled out that pistol and fired. She ain’t no “Commie,” she’d claim.

What always intrigues me about the societal split is the way that the divide plays out.

In the years after the war, the “right” was determined to believe that the “hippie freaks” LOST. That anybody who had ever opposed U.S. military involvement in Vietnam was permanently discredited – a stain that only the passage of time would wash away. The election of Ronald Reagan as president, followed up by the elder George Bush, reinforced that thought.

No dog poop in Chicago's Vietnam memorial

Which is why I always felt that Bill Clinton (and his mouthy bride Hillary) was despised so much by the right. If their theory were true, neither one of them should ever have had a life in the public eye. Yet Bill Clinton gained the presidency, while Hillary had a quarter of a century in the public eye, and came dangerously close (in their eyes) to winning the White House as well.

THE FACT THAT we got a Barack Obama presidency in the mix only further reinforces the notion that the left-leaning individuals of back then are not tainted for life – and in fact have left their mark on our society for the better. A reality that the Trumpites of our time wish they could undo.

Chicago relics of the Vietnam era

When U.S military interests pulled out of Vietnam in 1973, the hopes were that a split status would evolve – a North Vietnam of Communist leanings and a South Vietnam allied with the western world. Similar to what became of the two Koreas. It didn’t happen – the North stormed its way in and took the South two years later.

Although I have to admit that such a notion of a split Vietnam continuing to this day carries a bit of scariness. If you think about it, would we really want a North Korea-like nation in existence – one that would be all too eager to ally itself with Kim Jong Un’s constant threats to resume the Korean War of the early 1950s against the United States?

Which may be a “fight” that the “right” may be yearning for – a chance to undo a military stalemate and turn it into a “win!” Even though sane people have more sensible things to focus attention on.

NOW I DON’T know how all this would play out, if it were to happen. Much of the reason the anti-war movement became so intense was because of the practical fear of many to not want to get killed in combat. Maybe they had enough going for themselves in life that they wouldn’t view the thought of a medal awarded posthumously as a worthy accomplishment.

Nowadays, we have a volunteer military that makes it likely that everybody in service feels they’re gaining something of benefit to themselves. I don’t see the uprisings – except perhaps from the “right” who wish they could create John Wayne-like images for a modern-day military conflict.

PBS shows Howard still upset w/ anti-war movement

USA Today recently had a graphic on their website explaining the concept of the draft lottery that used to exist, and let people see for themselves how likely they would have been to be called to duty – in my case, my birthday was number 11 in the lottery, which means I would have had to scramble for a worthy excuse for a deferment to avoid active duty. Of course, I was only 5 back in 1970 – nobody called on me in reality.

But in my family’s case, I have two uncles who served in the military during Vietnam – one volunteered for the Marine Corps while another was drafted into the Army. Both saw their share of combat activity, but managed to come back in one physical piece – an accomplishment that I’m sure Howard would have wished for her son.

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Dueling holidays? It’s just Friday

Would you believe that today is a significant day when it comes to determining one’s political ideology?

It’s May 1, and just how you describe this day will give your enemies ammunition to use against you whenever they feel the need to dump on you for whatever strange reasons they concoct in their minds.

NOW AS SOME people of an international mindset will know, it is May Day. The day that officially marks the coming of the spring has been turned by many countries of a Communist orientation into a day of celebration of “the worker” (actually, the state that “owns” the worker).

But it’s a day for the workers of the world to think that someday they will unite.

That orientation is what caused groups such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars to make up their own holiday. It is Loyalty Day, and it is supposed to be the day upon which all Good Americans renounce the concept of Communism and spit on the very idea of May Day.

Not that anybody I know (or anybody who knows anyone I know) celebrates either holiday. For real people, the significance of May 1 this year is that it comes on Friday. So in a few hours, we will have the weekend upon us – one of the first of spring 2009.

IT SHOULDN’T BE a surprise that the concept of Loyalty Day dates back exactly 50 years. That makes this a significant anniversary for the holiday that does not seem to have caught on in the public’s imagination.

It is a remnant of the Cold War, and people who bother to acknowledge it are doing so most likely because they think someone will use their refusal to do or say anything about it as a sign that they’re one of the dreaded red hoard that thus far has failed to take over the world like the most paranoid among us in our society say it will.

I’ll have to plead my own ignorance. I had never heard of the concept of Loyalty Day until last week, when a municipal government that I sometimes cover for one of the suburban-based daily newspapers passed a resolution in support of the holiday.

So in many other municipalities, since the resolution had the feel of mass-produced rhetoric that could be passed by city councils across the country, residents are asked “to take full advantage” of having such a holiday to show how much they love their country.

IN ALL HONESTY, I must admit that the aldermen who voted in favor of a Loyalty Day resolution didn’t give it much thought. It was just another of the many routine resolutions with no binding authority that government officials support all the time.

I don’t think anyone is giving this so-called holiday much thought or concern.

If it sounds like I’m mocking the concept of Loyalty Day, you’d be right. And no, I don’t want to hear from the John Birch Society types that I’m expressing Communist sympathies. I’m just being realistic enough to say that this type of rhetoric is nothing more than a reminder of how absurd some aspects of our society were at the height of the Cold War.

Perhaps I’d see the need for an alternate holiday if the concept of May Day had ever caught on in this country. But it didn’t.

EVEN IN THE days when there was something of a Communist Party movement in this country (and most of those people were less enthralled by Moscow than they were opposed to the segregationist mentality that too many “real Americans” were willing to accept), the holiday itself wasn’t all that important.

In today’s day and age, there probably are many people to whom the thought of May Day is just as obscure as the VFW’s attempt to create a dueling holiday.

So I’m inclined to think we need to create a third option – one that I think is in line with the bulk of the population of the United States of America. May 1 is just May 1. We’ll see a few seconds of footage on the national newscasts (if we even bother to watch them) that tell us in some foreign countries that many of us most likely would not want to live in celebrated May Day.

We’ll snicker a bit at the thought of a pseudo-holiday, and perhaps at the thought of some clumsy oaf tripping over his own feet while dancing around the maypole.

THEN, WE’LL FORGET it until next year.

Because this year’s May 1 comes on a Friday, we’ll move on to making plans for our weekend. Perhaps we’ll spend some time with family members (or for some others, getting away from the family may be more enjoyable). The last thing I want to have to think about is an attempt by the VFW to continue to spread its 50-year-old rhetoric left over from a past age that is losing its relevance.

I don’t feel the need to crush “the Commies” at their holiday. I do feel sorry for anyone who in today’s day and age takes this kind of rhetoric seriously and feels the need to celebrate either of these holidays.

For me, it’s just a weekend.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Veterans of Foreign Wars issued their own statement about the need (http://www.vfw.org/resources/pdf/loyaltyday09.pdf) to continue the tradition of Loyalty Day, which appears to me to be even deader in this country than May Day.

Nature more powerful than Communism?

Former Illinois Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka recently came up with a commentary that everybody ought to give a read.

She used her column published in the Riverside/Brookfield Landmark newspaper to recall the story of a doll that had been in her family for decades – one that was dressed in a Czech ethnic costume and had actually been slipped out of the country when Communists gained control of the government.

TO TOPINKA, THE doll represented the ideals of a people struggling to survive under a repressive regime, and she wanted to try to preserve that concept by donating the doll earlier this year to the Czech and Slovak Museum.

That museum is in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and is now under water from the severe flooding that has struck the Midwestern U.S. The doll that survived Communism likely was lost due to Mother Nature and the overflow of the Mississippi River.

I don’t even come close to telling the story as well as Topinka does. Her commentary (http://www.rblandmark.com/main.asp?SectionID=3&SubSectionID=46&ArticleID=3925&TM=72027) can be found in the west suburban newspaper where she is a regular columnist.

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