War

The other day in school, two Vietnam veterans came and talked to our history class. They shared their stories and experiences, and answered every question that was asked, which is surprising. If I was a veteran, and I had these experiences, I would be hesitant to bring them up because they would probably bring back not very good memories. But they didn’t just share experiences, one veteran shared his opinion on war, which kind of caught me off guard.

This Vietnam veteran was against war and supported ending the war that we are currently engaged in. Normally when I think of veterans, I think of them as gung-ho and a little out there. But this veteran was not. If I saw him walking down the street, I would think he was just a regular guy. So when he said he supported ending the war, my first reaction was “I wonder if other veterans feel the same way as him?” It surprised me when he dealt out his opinion, but after thinking about it for a little while, I can see why he feels this way. I think that many veterans see what war is really like, the see the death and destruction, and I think that they realize that war is a bad thing. I think they realize that war does not solve the problems that people want solved, war does not fix things that are broken, war only breaks them more. I think to understand war, you have to be part of one. Not as a politician or observer, but as a solider in combat. To see what war really does, I think you have to participate and feel the feeling of the people who carry out the war, not the people who decide what to do in the war. I think that if the United States got into a major war right now (I’m not saying we are not in one, I’m just saying if we got into one that actually got peoples attention), I would have felt more comfortable with McCain as president. Nothing against Obama, but McCain was in the Vietnam War, he fought and was captured and he knows what war is like. He knows what would be right, and what wouldn’t.

Overall, I think I’m trying to say that war is not good. I support our troops and I have the greatest respect for soldiers, but I just think it is wrong to put them in this kind of compromising situation. I think that war doesn’t solve problems, and I think that politicians have some kind of mental block against this.