Topic: vietnam

Lugo on the military: No draft, no way!

By Chris Lugo | April 20, 2008 |

My father is a Vietnam Veteran. He was an officer in ROTC in 1968 while he was in college and went to Vietnam as a Lieutenant the year I was born. My father felt an obligation to his country and a duty to serve when called. I was born in a snowstorm in rural Minnesota while my father was halfway around the world in the jungles of Vietnam. I am proud of my father and his service to my country.

When I was a teenager, going to private Catholic school, I was approached by military recruiters. I was encouraged to join the military and to enlist in the ROTC program, much like my father had been. For whatever reason, I declined. I was not yet a peace activist like I became after the first Gulf War, but something in my instincts told me that I could not serve in the military the way my father had served.

In 1990, while I was enrolled at the University of Minnesota, George Bush Sr. began beating the drums of war. I was enrolled in the selective service program at that time in order to get student loans to go to college. I remember clearly the night the bombs began to drop in Iraq for the first time. I was living in the student district of Minneapolis and there had been anti-war activity on campus leading up to the invasion. Students were busy organizing against the campus military center, sometimes called the stockade, holding demonstrations and putting anti-war material in front of the recruiting and training center. «Read the rest of this article»

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Across the Universe: ‘Hair’ meets ‘Rent’ in a rock musical for the 21st century

By Christine Anne Piesyk | November 1, 2007 |

Once in a great while a movie comes along, a film that is perfection, a film that is a coalescing of sight, sound, story, imagination, message, heart and history that warrants a slot on the best movies of the year list. For Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe, that title may be extended to my list of best films of this decade.

Across the Universe is a vibrant collision of modern rock musical (as in Rent) and vintage rock musical (as in Hair), Broadway hits turned feature films, with song as the dominant method of moving the story forward. Across the Universe does that brilliantly.

Across the Universe is tatamount to time travel for us baby boomers. It begins sweetly, siftly, sentimentally, with a lonely youth, sitting on the shore in England, singing the wistful lyrics to Girl and looking out over the waves. yet there’s a hint of things to come, images superimposed with a suddenly wild surf, images of dissent and violence and anti-war sentiment that erupted in the 60s.

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A failure in generalship

April 27, 2007 |

For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq’s grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war.

These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America’s general officer corps. America’s generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America’s generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress.

“You officers amuse yourselves with God knows what buffooneries and never dream in the least of serious service. This is a source of stupidity which would become most dangerous in case of a serious conflict.” - Frederick the Great

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At what cost Iraq? How many troops are enough?

By Christine Anne Piesyk | January 10, 2007 |

President George Bush’s Wednesday night (1/10/07) speech, with details leaked earlier during the day, is expected to call for an additional 21,150 troops to be deployed to Iraq within the next few weeks. That news (a badly kept ’secret’) was released in tandem with the news that tours of duty for army and marine troops will be increased by anywhere from three to five months. A full year for marines (up from seven months) and fifteen months for army forces (up from a year). With troops already stressed, and some forces heading for second and third tours, how much is enough? Will it make a difference?

Bush seems to think so, but the rest of the country doesn’t seem quite so sure. In a word, “confidence is NOT high” on the Main Streets of America. Bush expects the additional forces will be able to quell the country’s in-fighting and insurgency, and has also put a time line of sorts on the Iraqi government to take control of their country within the coming year. That sounds like a good idea, but can it be done? «Read the rest of this article»

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