Just a temporary reprieve with the winter temperatures yesterday (Wednesday). So today it's Friday, normally a most upbeat day with the weekend beckoning. Our spirits remain somewhat dragged down by all we've been through. The pandemic never really lets go. Human beings are social creatures by nature. We relish contact with each other. The instinct is confronted by the ubiquitous threat of the virus.
Under these circumstances I mark my 67th birthday. It's today, Jan. 28, the date of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. I don't think we see as many flashbacks in the media as we used to. A friend from my church has her birthday on December 7 which is Pearl Harbor Day. We have this "infamy" in common.
But I try not to think about the Challenger thing. The disaster happened because NASA felt pressure to stick to its timetable in order to better compete with the Pentagon for future projects and contracts. The people responsible for that ought not sleep well at night.
Human impulse can go awry in so many ways. This is why we seek forgiveness from our Lord. I grew up during the Vietnam war debacle. About 60,000 young U.S. men with promising lives ahead of them got killed. I would say that qualifies as a pretty significant mistake.
I can irritate people with my memory about things. Like, how it was risky voicing any sort of war skepticism up through a certain year. My memory isn't good enough to pinpoint the year. But up until then, you encountered risk by voicing skepticism about the desire to prosecute and escalate the war.
The blame was primarily at the doorstep of Lyndon Johnson. One theory is that Johnson was so assertive with certain causes deemed "liberal," he had to satisfy the "conservatives" that he could be "tough" with national defense. So it was a trade-off. It only cost the lives of about 60,000 young men. Oh, and of course some women too - this is presumed.
I get tired of hearing our leaders always refer to "our men and women in uniform." It is understood that both genders are involved. The problem is one with the English language. Of course more men than women were involved with direct combat. Up through the '60s, the division between the sexes was much more pronounced than today.
Up until my senior year in high school, serious varsity sports for girls did not even exist. And when it started, naturally the girls had to go through growing pains. They could look awkward out on the basketball court. The progress was nonstop after that. I wonder if our Morris Area High School could research and find the five names of the varsity starters in the first-ever girls basketball game here. Would be nice to see these names on a plaque at the school, or to invite them, if they're all still with us, to a commemorative event. It would be wonderful to see a standing ovation, n'est-ce pas?
One's birthday is a time for reflection naturally. I am wondering seriously if I was in fact a victim of the Cold War. We set up the USSR as this big boogeyman. We feared the "domino effect" in Southeast Asia. We felt the solution as in WWII was to send waves of young men with guns, grenades, bazookas and the like into the field to kill the enemy. Apparently this was a necessary thing in WWII, to stop the Wermacht. But that was then.
The troops of WWII came home to proclaim "freedom isn't free." Well, sounds nice to be sure. But for the life of me, I could not see the wisdom behind the Vietnam venture, not at all, as we got the "World Events" posters updated in our elementary school classrooms. I learned the word "strive" from such a poster. As in, the South Vietnamese were "striving" to do something. My generation ended up saying "I don't care what the South Vietnamese are striving to do."
Today our government has friendly relations with the very element in Vietnam that we were fighting. Wait a minute, how's that? And while the conservative Goldwater types were thumping their chest over the necessity of war once, today this element of our population is applying the brakes, doing a reversal. Now we're supposed to stay away from the pointless Middle East wars.
And regarding Russia, the place that we once thought was such a fountain of everything bad in the world, we're supposed to re-think on that. That push is led by the Americans who call themselves conservatives, led by Donald Trump and the Fox News people.
Laura Ingraham now says she "retracts" her support for the Iraq war. The "neocon" Dick Cheney was a symbol for promoting the war effort, but now? My goodness, Liz Cheney is near the top of the list of adversaries of Donald Trump. The latter is the godlike figure who dictates to American conservatives everything they are supposed to think. They cannot even think for themselves any more. We're now supposed to have a bond with Russia.
Tucker Carlson suggests we should support Russia and also support strongman leaders who diss "democracy." I put "democracy" in quotes because it has become a contentious matter in America. We all once felt "democracy" was a cornerstone of our nation - the WWII vets were quite strong proponents. But now? "Democracy" is held in question.
I can only observe as I have no power to affect such things.
The Trump element asserts itself from church pews all across the U.S. I have begun to lose some longtime friendships over this. I am deeply concerned by this nation's drift to embracing Fascism. But mine is a lone voice in the wilderness. Or as Alex Karras famously said: "Mongo just pawn in game of life."
For the record I am now 67 years old. Up to now I have not been touched by the coronavirus. I have gotten all three "jabs" and at no point did I question the wisdom of being vaccinated. That makes me quite the anti-Trumpist. I reject Tucker Carlson along with all the Republicans that are influencing their flock to be wary of the shots - some of these people including locally here in Morris, have died. That is a pretty serious consequence.
But then so were the 60,000 young American lives taken in the Vietnam war.
The WWII generation believed in strong public education for all. After all, it was "big government" that had won WWII. So we got a big bulky monopolistic education system in America that could abuse kids. So in that sense, I am likely a victim of the Cold War.
Is there hope? Heaven help us all if there is no hope. If Trump ascends to the presidency again and starts carrying out vengeance, perhaps even with torture and executions, heaven help us all, and ditto with his likelihood to consider deploying nuclear weapons. If Trump does that, the U.S. could become obliterated right out of existence, as the Third Reich was.
Is that the kind of world you want for your kids? And you aren't concerned about climate change either? My church of First Lutheran definitely is, but we have become a forlorn little minority. Pockets of Christianity have survived everywhere, even through the worst.
People locally are not familiar with my relatives. I'm at center in photo above, posing with identical twin cousins Allan and Norman Ohlson. Their father Edwin was Mom's brother. Edwin has left us - his wife Doris is still alive. She lives with Allan in California. Norman died before his time. He was a decorated veteran of the Vietnam war and I suspect his death was connected in some way. I cannot distinguish the twins in photo. One of them holds the Williams family dog "Misty," a miniature German schnauzer. Misty was the first of our three cherished house dogs, to be succeeded by Heidi and Sandy. Mom's family in Brainerd had a dog named "Teddy" but she said the dog was really Edwin's. And Teddy died not long after Edwin left for the service in WWII, a case of heartbreak, Mom felt. I don't recall my father talking about any family dogs from when he was young.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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