Memorial Day

It is another hot day here in Sugar Land, Texas. This morning, the Boy Scouts put a flag up in front of our house, among several others in the neighborhood. It is an annual subscription service we have, as our HOA doesn't allow for flying flags yourself. I like having a flag flying on the patriotic holidays.

And today is a special day, as we remember the service of those who served in the Armed Forces and gave their lives in that service. Just a few weeks ago, I saw a web site that captured the names of those killed in Vietnam, so I looked up the names I could remember of classmates from school. I think now about the politics of the time, and its hard for me to remember why we were even there. I know we were in general fighting the Cold War, but the French warned us about that little area, and now I think about the 50,000+ lives we lost over there. It seems like such a waste of our blood.

Which leads to our current situation in Iraq and the ever more important Afghanistan. The "Rules of Engagement" have been set up to insure our soldiers are every bit as hampered as we were in Vietnam. Likewise, the enemy is indistinguishable from the local population we are supposedly trying to save. Likewise, we continue to support corrupt governments. Will we end up leaving in a couple years, not in absolute defeat, but having given up a conflict we finally realize we can't win? I suppose we will. And the world will spin on, and just like Vietnam is today, we may ultimately come to welcome Iraq and Afghanistan to the world of trade and economics.

Thinking about Vietnam like that now, perhaps our cause of freedom and capitalism did eventually win over there. I would like to think our efforts were not totally in vain.