Re[2]: vets/antiwar
kslinkar@lionheart.berkeley.edu
Mon, 22 Sep 97 14:42:07 PST
Mr. Hale:
My take on this missive was that we can not know enough of all the
circumstances to determine (godlike) who were the heroes, and who
were not. If we set up categories of people who were better than
other people, those divisions would be both arbitrary and endless.
Personally, I was quite taken by the "diggers." But I think we all do
what we can in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Were the
people who opposed the war before being in it better than the people
who opposed the war from the vantage of knowing what it was like? The
vets sometimes think they are better than civilians because they went
through hell and came out the other side. The civilians claim they
were better because they didn't fall for the propaganda in the first
place. And so on.
Rather than spend time and emotion on praise and blame, it might be
better to reach out to all who suffered from that terrible war and
together try to understand what needs to be learned and what we must
do from now on.
A bit of personal propaganda.
Karl Slinkard (kslinkar@library.berkeley.edu)