Winners, Losers, Believers

 

About a year after the Iraqi war started I was on the TGV from Argelès to Geneva. A young American soldier and his wife sat opposite me. 

He was on leave from the war. He talked to me about how he was helping to save the U.S. from weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

I believed he believed. I debated from Narbonne through to Avignon whether to say anything to him. He was young. He was proud. He was in love.

How would I say it? I started out by saying he was doing what he thought was his patriotic duty and he should be proud. 

I took a deep breath before continuing. I then went into how he and the world had been lied to about WMD. 

He disagreed with me and I didn't press further.

I've often wondered what happened to him. 

Did he go back and was he killed? 

Was he wounded?

If he were wounded did he discover how little the country he was so proud of to save it from WMD ignore his needs?

Did he ever learn as the rest of the world that there were no WMD? How the president who sent him into danger joked about it at a dinner pretending to look for WMD under a table?

The current U.S. president would call that man a loser. 

He wasn't a loser. He was a brave man standing up for his principles. That he had not been given the education to fall for the lie was not his fault.

Maybe it is my age having been in university during the Vietnam War where men who believed the Vietcong might come to Ohio, Indiana, Arizona and other states volunteered. Many were drafted. But they all served their country. They were not losers. They were believers in the lie.

Now there's a U.S. President who says dead soldiers who fought for the U.S. believing were losers. He denies it. Even Fox news, which first came out and said it was a lie, changed their minds. The news was broadcast on most major international stations. 

My reaction, even if it is a lie, because of who the president is and what he has said in the past it was believable. 

I know men and women go into the services voluntarily. Some do it for patriotic reasons, some for economic, some for adventure. They believe the propaganda they've been fed. They are not aware the services will take care of them until they have no more need for them.

They are no losers but believers. Doing what you believe in to defend others makes you a winner.

Rick has a dueling blog http://lovinglifeineurope.blogspot.com/2020/09/why-do-soldiers-sailors-and-airmen-serve.html