Message from a Vet of My Lai Time: “Our Descent Into Hell Has Begun”
… In Iraq, our descent into hell, our “Apocalypse Now” moment, has begun. First there was Gitmo, then the global rendition program, then Abu Ghraib, then the pulverizing of Fallujah, and now trigger-happy raids that are filling multitudes of sandy graves with men, women and children. Has “Kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out” become the mission in Babylon? Can’t anyone remember Vietnam, where we left behind more than a million dead civilians? In Iraq, we’ve way past the half-million mark, probably the million mark, if you count the 1990s sanctions. Are the American people as blind and deaf as they seem? Don’t we see ourselves walking through the gates of hell and can’t we hear the doors clanging shut on our country?
Who am I to say all this, you might ask. Fair enough, I reply. So let me tell you a story about monstrous crimes and tragedies from my generation about to be repeated in Iraq in front of the whole world. First, understand that a single soldier can’t be expected to grasp the total criminality of war because his whole universe is a tiny place right in front of his nose. So he can stay alive. If he knew everything that was going on, he would be heartbroken, and if he also knew why, he would go insane.
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