Though separated by nearly half a century, the parallels
between 1975 and today are eerie. In the White House, then as now, the new
president in office for less than a year — his predecessor an impeached and
hugely controversial figure — is widely viewed as a decent and affable man, but
many, even within his own party, fear that he is not fully up to the job and
overmatched by cascading events, foreign and domestic, and the swirling
passions of his deeply polarized countrymen who are unable or unwilling to heed
his urgent calls for unity and healing.
The veterans who returned from the lost war in Vietnam were
greeted not by parades or honors but frequently by mockery or contempt, and
those who dared to wear their uniforms in public risked being spat upon by
angry members of the now triumphant leftist, anti-war movement — many of whom
artfully avoided the draft by going to college or Canada, thereby laying the
foundation of the class war that now is so toxically embedded in our national
culture.
The soldiers now returning from the lost war in Afghanistan
face a different, more ominous kind of disrespect: the newly woke Pentagon
leadership has resolved to put aside the problematic war on foreign terrorism
and focus on a new war against “domestic terrorism.” The Secretary of Defense
has been clear that high priority must be given to weeding out white
supremacists and other extremists currently in uniform, and all service members
will undergo new training programs aimed at giving soldiers a better
understanding of American history (e.g., why 1619 is more important than 1776).
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