So This Was Christmas

This isn't about the following song most know, some understand.

Happy Xmas (War Is Over)


A song I kept hearing, over and over each day almost hourly, as my coworkers wanted to listen to Christmas music at the jobsite, so we switched channels, and the canned programming played this a number of times. I kept wondering if there was a message there or if whoever made up the program list really knew what the song was about, or if it was just about Lennon singing about Christmas, much like the Reagan campaign took to 'Born in the USA' as their own, remember that, nobody apparently knowing the words to!

I got in a little hometown jam
And so they put a rifle in my hands
Sent me off to Vietnam
To go and kill the yellow man

[chorus]

Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me"
I go down to see the V.A. man
He said "Son don't you understand"

[chorus]

I had a buddy at Khe Sahn
Fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone
He had a little girl in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms

Bruce Springsteen

This is about a perspective a fellow 'Nam Vet wrote for the Truthout site, and abit more, called So This Is Christmas.

John Cory, who wrote the perspective, is a Vietnam Veteran. He received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star with V device, 1969 - 1970. Visit his site, you might enjoy.

John starts out with this, posted on Christmas Day, another reason for the song and video:

"A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear."

- John Lennon

Music is a powerful touchstone, so while you're reading this, put on "Happy Christmas (War is Over)." Let it play in the background.

I will leave out some of what John wrote, visit the link to read, but will put here a big chunk of my fellow 'Nam Vets thoughts on this Christmas 2007, the gifts, under the tree, of our present president to the Nation:

They are the gifts a president gives his country; his legacy and promise for the future, his servitude to "We the People" and his vision of America.

So here under the tree, dazzling and glossy in sateen bows and velvet ribbons are the gifts of this president:

Sparkle-laden paper wrapped around a box of Fear. The plastic paranoia sealed package contains all the colors of Fear from brown to yellow to pink and purple. A small booklet of instructions is included on how to apply Fear to every situation and person not "one of us," and how to brush on racism, homophobia and bigotry with the mascara of mendacity.

A flag-covered box of brightly painted brittle toy soldiers and game board, plus interchangeable body parts for when they get broken from too much rough play. Each toy soldier is hand-painted, unnumbered and anatomically neutered to withstand everything but real war. Families not included.

There is the whirring and buzzing latest techno must-have, self-injectable Micro-Thought Chip. A gift from your government to monitor your thoughts and ideas and provide auto electro-pulse correction should you waver from acceptable mind processes. A gift certificate is included for all your left-thinking friends. Let them embrace the light.

A small gossamer-covered box with one of those glass globes you shake to create a snow flurry - only this one encases "Democracy" and when you shake it, a crystal storm of red, white and blue flakes spins madly about until "Democracy" disappears.

And the last gift is a huge box with a thousand ribbons and bows and soft crinkle tissue paper taped and mangled together as though made by a child, but when you get it all unwrapped - it's empty. Or so you think. It is a box of sadness. A place for broken dreams of what has been lost. A place to store the faded Polaroid postcards of the America that once was. An empty box big enough to hold a heart full of holes from nearly 4,000 troops killed by the lies that cradle the deceit and treachery that sold a war for the benefit of the few who line their pockets with the lives of our loved ones. It's a big empty box that can hold the despair of 126 veterans who commit suicide every week in this country. Room enough for the 20 to 30 percent of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD. But not big enough for a mother or father to crawl inside and rummage around for the touch and smell of the child killed or maimed in this war.

But there's one more, almost overlooked:

And then you spot it. The small package under the back branches of the tree, strings of tinsel dripping down and nearly covering the box. So tiny and forlorn. Not the same as the others. It looks so fragile, so precious. And you open it carefully, not ripping or tearing the paper while gingerly pulling the ribbon bows and lift the top off and then, wide-eyed, you smile. It's stunning. It makes you giggle and tremble at the same time. You search for the card, but there is none.

You'll have to vist Johns Perspective to find out what's in this last gift, a gift I doubt was left by you know who!

Now during the Holiday grab fest of materialistic items, at a Mall in Madison Wisconsin, a small group of Pro-Peace activists were giving respect, by reading the names of those killed in the Iraq Debacle, Military and Civilian, as we approarched the day we celebrate as the Birth of The Prince of Peace, the baby Jesus.



Now in the video these activists mention that some of the parents they encountered weren't to happy with what they were doing and stated that this small group were Scaring their small children.

My guess would be that at least a few of these children were thinking "Right mom or dad, this group is Scaring us! Now how about the little children of Iraq as the Bombs are Dropping or the Artillery and others Weapons are fired, or living in a Country being Destroyed, Don't You Think These 'Children' Were Scared, Freightened"!

You see, no matter where adults exist in this world, Kids are pretty damn smart and figured out already that many Adults just plain don't make sense, no matter their education!

Lets hope more kids develope their inner gifts, common sense, critical thought, intelligence, much better than the Adults around them that allowed these gifts to just fade away, never to return!

Vietnam Veteran's Words Hit Home

The following is a column from the La Times today, there’s another that might be of interest to some, about the U.S. and Multinational Companies concerning Columbian Terror, that fits as to the long running past and the present, and not just limited to Columbia.

It’s written by
Steve Lopez , the Title above being the column

It starts out thus:

It's Friday morning, and I'm on my way to finally meet an ex-cop and soldier who lets me have it now and then with stinging e-mails.

"I'm Disappointed!" said the subject line of Terry Schauer's latest missive, in which he scolded me for last week's column about my nephew enlisting in the Marines. "I think you took this opportunity to turn your column into an antiwar rant, at your nephew's expense. It is belittling not only to your nephew, but to all who serve."

This is the column that Terry Schauer referanced:

When the reality of Iraq hits home
July 15, 2007
My nephew is in boot camp.

One month into it, I'm still having trouble getting used to the sound of those words.

Today’s column continues:

I'm not the only one he writes to. I once came across a powerful letter to the editor he'd written to the New Yorker. In it, he said he was proud to have served in Vietnam, but he eloquently expressed the complexity of his continued distress over the killing of a young North Vietnamese soldier.

"Killing an adversary removes part of your soul," Schauer wrote. "Your 'kill' turns out to be a young kid much like you — armed, in uniform, sent forth by his country into battle.

"As time passes, feelings of guilt, sorrow, and remorse accompany the odd, displaced feeling that you have become the person you killed," he continued. "You see him in your sons, and wonder if fate will someday take them from you to settle the score."

Ever wonder why most never really talk about their experiances after serving in a Combat Theater, Terry gives you a glimpse into one of the reason’s, and wether you have or have not killed, everyone knows what is going on In Theater, especially those living in the Invaded Countries.

His mother tells Schauer that he never came back from Vietnam.

No one, who goes through these actions of what we do as human beings, is ever what they were before that experince, No One!

Most everyone born, no matter where, are raised to believe in values that shape their being, Wars are the Total Opposite of those learned values, and especially Wars of Choice with No Justifiable Reasons for the Carnage!

"If I woke up tomorrow and was 21, I wouldn't want to join the Army again," he says, telling me that time has only made him more certain the soldier he killed did not deserve to die any more than he did.

Used as pawns of the desires others have, certainly not the wants of the individuals who are used to obtain those others desires, for many who would send others into Invasions never haave experianced the destructive nature they have unleased!

Terry goes on to describe the why of Steve’s nephews want to join and serve and closes with this:

"Write him often, Steve. Tell him you love him. Keep him current on what he likes…. Don't go overboard on telling him you're worried about him. That doesn't help."