Military men, women deserve respect
By Staff
Oct. 11, 2001
As a child of the Vietnam War era, I remember watching television coverage of the 1968 riots in Chicago, the Kent State slayings and the unfolding of "the living room war."
There is a soundtrack to it all in my memories the music of John Lennon, The Doors, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. "Imagine" … imagine, indeed. But there are also memories from those days with no soundtrack save the bitter sobs of mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers and young wives burying their dead. Can't get it out of my head.
I remember attending the funerals of Joe Graham and Bubba Smith in Newton County their bodies shipped home from Vietnam after they were killed in combat. Joe, who took so many meals with us in that little frame teacher's home across from Beulah-Hubbard School in the years before his death, haunts my memories to this very hour.
Memories of Dad and Joe
My parents were among Joe's high school teachers. Joe struggled in school, but he worked hard and was a good boy. They loved him for trying so hard to learn and for his gentle spirit. He should never have gone to Vietnam, Daddy said. Joe was too good, too trusting, and too tender-hearted to kill.
A decorated World War II soldier, my father knew of what he spoke. Some 25 years earlier, he shipped out for Europe much the same way as had Joe. He came home to my mother changed in only the way a man who has had to make the decision to kill or be killed is changed.
Like most Americans, I find myself even today unable to enunciate why Joe and Bubba died in Southeast Asia but years later I would find their names on the long, black marble wall of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington and take stone-rubbings of them home to my mother to share a moment of remembrance for two young boys cut down in the prime of their lives.
Politics be damned, Joe and Bubba died with honor wearing the uniform of this nation. They earned their honor. They earned our gratitude. But so many of their compatriots who survived that conflict came home to the scorn and derision of war protesters who literally spat on some of them and called them "baby killers."
While some 50,000 American soldiers, sailors and airmen are today in peril halfway around the globe as they engage this nation's declared war on terrorism, the anti-war protests are already under way. Want to protest the war? Knock yourself out. Disagree with the government? Hey, you have the right. Think we should "give peace a chance" in the face of the outright slaughter of almost 7,000 American men, women and children on Sept. 11?
I don't, I can't, but some folks do.
The debate is yours for the making. While this newspaper's position on America's proper response to this crisis is abundantly clear, we've given the voices of dissent from that position a forum to express those views. Go for it.
Our tab has been paid
That's the way it's done in a democracy. You have the right to protest and dissent. It's protected by the same First Amendment that lets me write this column in freedom and safety.
You have the right to protest because men and women like Joe and Bubba died to guarantee that right. You have the right to protest because my dad and thousands of people like him risked their lives for it. They paid our nation's tab.
The soldiers, sailors and airmen representing this nation as we battle terrorism deserve our respect, our gratitude and the right to come home in peace and comfort to the nation they are defending.
Protest the war if you choose, but let's not repeat the disgraceful, shameful manner in which America's Vietnam-era vets were treated. Not now, not ever.
Sid Salter is Perspective Editor/Columnist at The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson and a syndicated Mississippi political columnist for two decades. Call him at (601) 961-7084, write P.O. Box 40, Jackson, MS 39206, or e-mail ssalter@jackson.gannett.com.
