We watched a powerful movie Saturday - Flags of Our Fathers. It was a riveting story of World War II's battle for Iwo Jima, and the battle scenes were horrific. I thought they were as powerful as those in the movie Saving Private Ryan. Since I am not a veteran I can only live war stories vicariously. I can attest to a degree of the pain experienced by a war-wounded veteran because of my own injury, but that would pale in comparison to the hell some of the vets must have gone through. As a young man I remember going into the local tavern and seeing old soldiers lined up at the bar. One did not need classes in psychology to recognize that they were still fighting battles in their troubled minds. I've thought about them a lot through the years.
It was not enough that we had that generation of conflicted lives, we developed even more. Remember Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq plus a number of almost forgotten smaller ones. Certainly, some military engagements seem necessary to preserve our culture and its ideals. Unfortunately, whether or not military action is necessary becomes a debatable issue and often it is a highly subjective decision rendered by an oligarchy, as is the case in the recent war.
I have seen a picture of the cover of this week's Newsweek magazine. It is a strong depiction showing the first President Bush as a large figure in the foreground with the current Bush a small receding figure in the background. It is a striking metaphor of the elder Bush's philosophy of pragmatism superceding the younger's ideology.
