Veterans Day, Part Two
"Mixed feelings and deep emotions."
My Saturday Veterans Day post shared a wartime story my father told of him delivering one message on one night in 1944. I illustrated his words with this photo at the end. The American soldiers were smiling in victory. The photo would have been taken in June, 1945. My father had showered. He had clean clothes. They would be going home for a month, and then, they thought, on to Japan for more combat. But for now they were alive and safe.
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| U.S. military film. 67 seconds |
Larry Slessler has shared Guest Posts here about his military service in Vietnam. Slessler grew up in Medford, then spent a long career managing services for fellow veterans. Like my father, he had misgivings about the weapons and tactics of modern war.
Guest Post by Larry Slessler
Veteran’s Day 2022 with Willy Peter
Most of you do not know “Willy Peter.” A few of you that are, for the most part Veterans of a “Conflict,” know Willy Peter. An aside: "Conflict" is the current euphemism for war. It is so much more palatable for our fragile psyches having our young men and women engaged in a conflict rather than a war. People get hurt, or killed, in a war. A conflict sounds so much more civilized.
"Willy Peter" is the military term used for White Phosphorous. It is one of the most hideous weapons in the military arsenal. Willy Peter burns at around 1,500 degrees F. We used it in Vietnam. I won’t describe its effect on the human body because most of you would stop reading. Let me sum up Willy Peter by saying it is what Napalm wants to be when it grows up.
I got a quick walk down memory lane in early November 2022 when one of the national news programs showed footage of a Russian night aerial bombardments of White Phosphorous on the Ukraine population. The next day, while running an errand, I replayed the past nights footage in my mind. I had to pull over and park for a time as I was too emotional and unsafe to drive.
Veterans Day 2022 is here. It is always a day of mixed feelings and deep emotions for me. Most of you readers are too young to know when there was no Veterans Day. Until I was in High School, November 11th was called “Armistice Day.” It celebrated the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 that ended WWI. That subtle change in 1954 took the day’s emphasis away from peace. I, for one, regret that change.
Currently the day has become a platform for the “Glory” of the warrior and a chance to showcase military might.
In 1990, I was in Moscow with 49 other Vietnam vets. We were the invited guests of Soviet Afghanistan vets. We were there to help the Soviet vets establish vet self-help programs like we had in the United States.
One scheduled event was our 50 American vets joining about 200 Soviet Afghan vets and participating in the 1990, 26-mile Moscow Marathon. All we vets were wearing the same shirts. Red color (For blood) with the Soviet and American flags meeting in the middle. A crossed M16 and AK 47 and a dove of peace were also in the middle. Large white printing proclaimed “Veterans for Peace” in both Russian and English. Note: We older and/or out of shape vets ran the 5 mile option, both ending in Moscow Stadium. Soviets cheered us all and gave loud applause and call outs to us American vets. Soviets lined up for hours in the stadium to meet an American Vietnam vet.
One early 40-ish Soviet woman waited until the end. She told me in broken English that her only child/son had been killed in Afghanistan. She asked me to take a message from her to all American mothers. That message was “No more war.” I have worked to honor her request. I can add nothing more to that.
I think of her often and especially every November 11th. Peace to us all.
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3 comments:
Larry,
Your comments bring to mind the dire warning we received from President Eisenhower about the military-industrial complex. It’s too bad he waited until he was leaving office to address the issue. Since WWII, the U.S. hasn’t declared war, but has killed millions in “conflicts” which served no apparent purpose other than enriching that complex. I keep waiting for Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” and Jimi Hendrix’ version of the National Anthem to go out of style, but they remain as relevant today as when they were composed.
The saying “War is diplomacy by other means.” is too trite and often misses the point which is “War first and than we’ll negotiate”. Technology has made aggression too easy and too deadly that we now risk our own destruction when we enter and engage in “conflict”.
White phosphorus actually has two military uses:
* super-napalm, as already described, when it hits a target on the ground directly and burns after impact
* production of dense, white smoke, when it is deployed as an airburst, and burns up before it hits the ground. The smoke is useful for preventing activities by snipers, and others whose tactics rely on vision at a distance.
Dishonest activists often accuse militaries that employ the airburst tactic of having committed “war crimes.“ These accusations include pictures of people with severe burns, something that does not happen when the purpose is to create smoke, and the white phosphorus burns up in the air and never makes it down to the ground.
This is what the airburst tactic looks like: image
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