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A Marine Talks to My Heart

By Cesar Hernandez

This afternoon, I listened to a Marine (22-year veteran) make a statement (titled by the media, "A marine veteran fights back tears") and pose a question to Beto O'Rourke that spoke to my heart as a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War.

The 22-year veteran essentially stated that, after his long stint in the Corps, he was not prepared for the changes in America that are occurring under the current administration. Specifically, he named President Trump's advisor, Stephen Miller, and the Gestapo tactics that ICE is employing against immigrants and other classes of refugees legally allowed to enter and work in this country. How they are being rounded up, separated from families and jobs, and being incarcerated for deportation.

This brought to mind a letter I was in the process of writing after a visit with another Vietnam Veteran (US Army/Swift Boats), a friend, who voted for Trump. Our conversation began with his calling and ended when I stated that Trump was a coward who had evaded Vietnam with a deferment for bone spurs. As a Marine who had lost 16 friends in Nam, there was no way I could consider him a president and commander in chief of the armed forces. After that short discussion, I set about writing a letter for my friend and other Nam veterans that I also know voted for this misogynist idiot.

I titled my letter, "O' Brother Where Art Thou" after the George Clooney film (which I really liked) with that title. Here's what it has to say about me to a fellow combat veteran.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Do we really want to explode on one another over the divisions that are being forced upon us by a class of billionaires intent on taking over our governmental and economic systems for their sole benefit? If so, then this deserves to be said before we tear everything apart over our differences.

Our families, children, and grandchildren deserve clean air and water, as well as a healthy planet to live on; they deserve respect for their individual bodies and life choices that affect only them. They deserve equal opportunities in education and jobs, as well as justice within, without, and before the law. They deserve healthy food, safe products, and tools to help them accomplish their daily lives. They deserve homes, health care, and medicines that don't burden their existence but help facilitate their survival. They need to understand that the society we have built enables them with many rights, privileges, and benefits, and expects us all to develop and contribute to the common good. They need to understand that all of these things come through the contributions, sacrifices, and lives given by our predecessors in establishing our union under a constitution of laws and conduct. I appreciate what I was born into, and I want these things for your family as I want them for my own, and I'm willing to give the last full measure of my devotion to achieve them; are you? Because the divisions being foisted upon us may soon bring our society into the throes of Civil War?

Billionaires

Why are we allowing billionaires to dictate the daily form of our discourse (Fox News, Instagram, Snapchat, WSJ, Facebook) and existence? Why are they the only ones allowed to dictate how we will treat the commonalities of our existence, our forest lands, inland and external waters, natural resources, air, water, wind, and wildlife? Why do we allow them to confuse and divide us with the distractions of immigration (we're all immigrants or the sons and daughters of immigrants), color, sexualism, religion, or lack thereof? Why do we accommodate their desire for more of the COMMONS PIE by giving them subsidies (new sports stadiums, coal and oil leases, pollution offsets) to be paid through increases in the national debt our children will have to repay? Why are we letting them turn us against each other and our friends (Canada, Mexico, Europe) and align us with our adversaries (Putin's Russia, Little Rocket Man's NorthKorea, Xi's China): where oligarchs rule? If you aren't asking these questions of yourself yet, then you should begin to wonder: what's up? Because United We Stand; divided we fall! And the last time our country did this to itself, it cost us 620,000 (military dead) and 900,000 (civilian dead) in the Civil War.

Is this what we want to revisit as a result of this game being waged between billionaires? Billionaires don't give their lives for their country; they use our sons and daughters for that job. Billionaires don't pay their fair share in taxes; that's why we pay 3% of our total wages into Social Security, while they have made their cutoff rate at the first $174,000 in earnings, and the system is short-funded. Billionaires receive subsidies and tax breaks for their businesses. At the same time, captains of industry earn 40-300 times the average salary of their workers and often receive golden parachutes if they fail to perform. Billionaires couldn't care less about you, me, and our families as long as they can keep us at each other's throats for what's left of the pie after they are done. For this is how they control us! And is this what you want?

We Can Be Better, We Must Do Better: A Call To Arms

Good examples are written all around us!

"All men are created equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," or that is what we profess in our country's Constitution. The Statue of Liberty embodies the America I believe in with the message: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." (Taken from the Emma Lazarus poem, The New Colossus).

Marines, National Guard, and Army units do not belong on our city's streets! Especially on the whims and fantasies of a wannabe despot who has never served and considers prisoners of war (i.e., the late Sen. John McCain) losers. The war in Vietnam ended when the American people, led by our youth, celebrities, veterans, and everyday people, could no longer tolerate the killing and injustices the war perpetuated. That's how I ended service to my country. However, it appears that was not enough, and I wonder if it isn't time to be responsible for a future generation of veterans by encouraging them to uphold the solemn oath they took and preparing them to resist unlawful orders and actions. This is a question all VVAW members should consider.

Cesar Hernandez, joined out of Chicago, IL USMC Hollywood marine/platoon 3077 9/21/67-4/21/70. Vietnam 6/68-7/69, served 7th Comm Bn. RVN, Hill 34, Phi Bai, An Hoa, LZ Stud, honorable discharge Cherry Point, NC. Living in MT 53 years.