The Beginnings of the Peace Blog

[Carlos]

I had a conversation with a Vietnam war veteran this morning at the Methodist Hospital cafeteria. He was an engineer of some sort. However, what was important in our conversation was his take on war. He went to Vietnam twice: once in 1966-67, and again in '73 when the war was nearing its end. He said that the goal of war was to kill everything in sight wherever it is that the vehicle of transportation for the soldiers unloads. He said he jokes around with his wife by telling her that in a war, he would like to just atomic bomb the enemy once and tell them all that they can either comply with the other's request or they will completely annihilate the entire country. She didn't find it so funny. I didn't either. In fact, what he describes happened in Japan. He agreed with me on one point: Americans don't know what a real WAR on the home front is. The Civil War doesn't count because the last war veteran for that war already died in the 60s. The atomic bomb joke was a typical viewpoint. An American viewpoint. This is the start of my Anti-War Blog.

Anything war can do, peace can do better.