Brave

I've just sent off my biannual contribution to Homes for our Troops, my small way of giving back something to those brave enough to take up arms in support of the rest of us, regardless of the rightness of the war.

Vietnam was the war that shaped my understanding of the horrors of war.  That was the war in which returning soldiers were shunned and spat on, to our eternal shame.  I couldn't understand how ordinary soldiers could be blamed for fighting in an immoral war. They were like the young men I knew, inexperienced, unworldly, looking forward to a life of a different kind.  I could barely imagine how horrifying it would be to be thrust into that violence.

We are living now in a time when the life of the individual soldier is of no value to those who send them to fight. They send young men, and now women, to unnecessary wars, willing to throw away the lives and futures of those who have so much to contribute.  War should always be the last resort, yet now it is the first thing that is in the minds of those in power.

I can only hope that cooler minds will prevail; in the meantime, I do what I can for those who have paid such a high price.