For R who was devastated as he watched the beginning of the war in Afghanistan 30 years after he returned, broken, from Vietnam / For wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, and friends of soldiers throughout history

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"The fact that these 3 brave souls can disagree and not feel like killing each other - MAN O MAN. How I wish this spirit would be in us."

(Comment on YouTube video "Purple Heart Veterans React to the US Withdrawal from Afghanistan")

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One of the three Purple Heart Veterans says, "Why would I want my children to join the military?"

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More comments on the above YouTube video:

"I listened to Dire Straits throughout my time in Afghanistan.  Played out of a communication laptop attached to our armoured vehicle.  Kept me going.  👍👍"

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"This song has always been emotional to me, but it hits much harder after this past week. Thank you for this heart felt performance Mark. Thinking about everyone I served with in Afghanistan."

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"I'm a Vietnam Vet. When I heard this the first time I cried the tears of a baby. Only a combat vet can understand how much this song is true in every word. Don't think for one second that I believe any of you don't feel the words. I know you do. I'm talking of a visceral, deep in the bones, feeling. One that goes far beyond just feeling the song. Now it's so many years since this was released and still I cry when I hear it. Thank you Mark for writing this and for giving such a heartfelt performance each and every time. I love your work."

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"This is a song that kids should be taught in schools all over the world. Look after each other. Look after our world. Beautiful."

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BROTHERS IN ARMS

These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home was the lowlands
And always will be
Someday you'll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you'll no longer burn to be
Brothers in arms

Through these fields of destruction
Baptism of fire
I've watched all your suffering
As a battle raged high
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

So many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

Now the sun's gone to hell
And the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the starlight
And every line in your palm
We are fools to make war
On our brothers in arms

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The Dalai Lama:

I want to make it clear, however, that although I am deeply opposed to war, I am not advocating appeasement. It is often necessary to take a strong stand to counter unjust aggression. For instance, it is plain to all of us that the Second World War was entirely justified. It "saved civilization" from the tyranny of Nazi Germany, as Winston Churchill so aptly put it. In my view, the Korean War was also just, since it gave South Korea the chance of gradually developing democracy. But we can only judge whether or not a conflict was vindicated on moral grounds with hindsight. For example, we can now see that during the Cold War, the principle of nuclear deterrence had a certain value. Nevertheless, it is very difficult to assess al such matters with any degree of accuracy. War is violence and violence is unpredictable. Therefore, it is better to avoid it if possible, and never to presume that we know beforehand whether the outcome of a particular war will be beneficial or not.

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From Ursula K. Le Guin's translation of the Tao Te Ching:

AGAINST WAR

Even the best weapon
is an unhappy tool,
hateful to living things.
So the follower of the Way
stays away from it.

Weapons are unhappy tools,
not chosen by thoughtful people,
to be used only when there is no choice,
and with a calm, still mind,
without enjoyment.
To enjoy using weapons
is to enjoy killing people,
and to enjoy killing people
is to lose your share in the common good.

It is right that the murder of many people
be mourned and lamented.
It is right that a victor in war
be received with funeral ceremonies.

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Let every voice be heard.  

"... Let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late ..."

Memorial Day 2018 Meditation / Brothers and Sisters in Arms

On Memorial Day in 1975, along with women of various ages, I was working as an industrial sewing machine operator in a small factory that produced ski wear in Bellingham, Washington, where I still live. Among my co-workers were at least a dozen Vietnamese women of various ages who had been among those who had been evacuated just prior to the fall of Saigon.  I became friends with a Vietnamese woman who was the same age I was.  We had both lost our first loves in that war.  Her boyfriend's throat was slit by a Viet Cong.  My boyfriend returned physically from Vietnam in 1970 but never found the peace he sought and believed in for the rest of his life.  His gifts were lost to the world.  I lost him as a result of the Vietnam War.  He died many times before his death in a VA hospital in Palo Alto, California.  He was against the war when he went to Vietnam but saw no way to avoid going.  Each succeeding war troubled him deeply.

My friend went forward with her life in a way that I was unable to do. In the 1980s, my friend traveled to India as a single woman as part of a church group.  She hoped to adopt a girl from India named Karuna. My friend commissioned me to make a portrait from a photo of her and Karuna.  She was not able to adopt Karuna.

My friend was raised in a Catholic orphanage after being abandoned by her mother who had married a man who did not want her because she was not his child.  She was never adopted.  When she was old enough to work, she was hired by the U.S. Army and worked as a gym attendant in Saigon before being evacuated in April 1975.

In the early 2000s, she and her husband went to Vietnam and adopted an infant boy from an orphanage.  She and her husband and her son traveled back to Vietnam in the 2010s to meet with her mother and siblings that she had not seen since childhood.  Her son met his birth mother and siblings.  During the years I have know her, I have learned from her about living in the present.  She led the way.

Here is a photo of us in the mid-1970s:

and a photo of her on my porch in the 1980s:

From a previous post:

In late January 1970, I drove R to Oakland Army Base on the day before he was to fly to Vietnam.  He asked me not to cry when I said goodbye to him.  I honored his wish but cried hard on my way home across the San Francisco Bay Bridge.  That night he called me and asked me to come back and pick him up and take him to a draft resistance office.  I sat in the hallway while he talked with a draft resistance counselor.  When he returned to the hallway, his heart was heavy.  He said, "I will meet the defeat of her challenge."  He didn't believe he could be granted conscientious objector status.  He didn't want to go to Canada and doubted that Canada would accept him anyway because of his lack of education or skills valued by the Canadian government.  He did not want to go to prison (although he ended up in prison later in his life). He made the fateful decision to go to Vietnam. He was against the war when he left and against the war when he returned home on December 8, 1970, but when he returned he was broken by his experience of war.  He struggled for the rest of his life. We separated for the last time in early October 1971.  In one of the last letters to me in around 2006, he wrote. "All we are saying is give peace a chance."

The true end of a war is the rebirth of life;
the right to die peacefully in your own bed.
The true end of war is the end of fear;
the true end of war is the return of laughter.

-- Alfred Molano

Memorial Day is not only about those who have died in war but about the living.

To jog my memory, I visited these previous posts:

• Memorial Day 2010 (1)
• Memorial Day 2013 (1)
• Memorial Day 2014 (1)
• Memorial Day 2015 (1)
• Memorial Day 2016 (1)
• Memorial Day 2017 (1)
• Memorial Day Weekend 2015 (1)

Turning to music in the days of beheadings and never-ending wars

...when asked if you care about
the world's problems, look deeply
into the eyes of he that asks
you, he will not ask you again...
(Bob Dylan, 1964, from "Advice for Geraldine on her Miscellaneous Birthday")




Brothers in Arms



Don't Think Twice It's Alright



Diamonds and Rust



Joan Baez sang after John Martyn on the Jools Holland Show in 1992.

Thank you to Sabine and Robert for introducing me to the life and music of John Martyn which inspired this stream of consciousness post and reminded me of Tim Buckley and brought to mind my Richard who was nothing if not a kindred spirit to John Martyn. I wouldn't be surprised if they shared some of the same creative/self-destructive DNA, seeming to be at war with themselves unto death.

...I fought with my twin
That enemy within
'Til both of us fell by the way...
(Bob Dylan, 1978, from "Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)")

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
(Sun Tzu)

Thinking about Nelson Mandela