Feb. 19, 2003 - 19:00 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

In People

When I was a very little kid I remember being introduced to a veteran from the Spanish American War, a disabled person, old as dirt, still proud.

A bit of time later I encountered veterans of World War One and was surprised at the many disabled men there were from that.

Then came a war that took many of my friends never to return. Shattered the psyche of my uncle. I worked with veterans from that war who would never be quite healthy ever again, struggling to earn a living.

I spent a few months working in Vietnam. I saw the wounded American GI's hobbling along by the big hospital, those were the ones in good shape. The others I had seen in the hospital at Yokohama where medical personnel were trying to stabilize them enough to ship them home.

I had the opportunity to visit an orphanage with men from the unit I was attached to and saw the abject poverty those little kids lived under. I saw the Viet Namese crippled soldiers, ones missing limbs, others missing part of their minds as well. I saw widows trying to survive and keep their kids alive.

Later in life I was delivering flowers to veterans in the veteran's hospital yet in 1989. Folks who had been in since they were sent home. There were men from the Korean ?Police Action? men from World War Two, folks from the madness in Viet Nam.

There are words, a mantra of a kind that spins in my mind a good part of the time now, "Nobody, absolutely nobody wins a war. There is a victor, but a war is not truly won considering the victims on both sides."

I don't think peace demonstrations do much good, other than express our feelings. It seems to be the mindset of the movers and shakers of the world to wage war of one kind or another most of the time. Some where, some how.

National resources, materiel, fantastic sums of money and treasure spent on this foolishness.

Oh dear God, the horrible price paid by all nations In People . . . . . . . . . . . .

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