I feel I owe this to all the soldiers, fellow Canadians, and Americans. This whole war in Afghanistan and Iraq has been going on just shy of a decade. I have never really been for or against the war. Yes, I am a hippie thus peace, love, and happiness reign supreme, but I remember where I was for 9/11. I remember feeling Bush was very much in the right in declaring war and sending all those troops. It just never really dawned on me what was going on. I like to say that I try to stay on top of current events and world issues, but I never really cared to understand this. “The Americans are going to fight and resume their world power status and Canadians are going over to clean up their mess and restore peace.” – so often this is the mindset. It was what I understood was going on. Week after week, I see pictures of yet another soldier who has been killed. As I drive along the 401, I see people standing with banners and Canadian flags on the overpasses waiting for the cavalcade of police cars and other chauffeurs that surround the hearse carrying the body of the soldier. My thoughts as I see all this are “Another one down all for the sake of peace from the mess the Americans brought. That sucks….I’m glad I got on the road when I did or I would be stuck in the horrendous traffic that follows the motorcade.” I understood that lives were on the line, I knew a horrific war was taking place across the ocean, but I stayed numb to it all.
I have heard many Americans talk about war. That could be why I chose to stay ignorant of it all. They would bash our Canadians not doing anything but being friendly and then go on to talk about all their big guns and ammunition. This was the mindset of America and all its citizens and soldiers in my mind. It just made the war a bloodthirsty buffet for the Americans. That’s always the way it sounded, so I chose not to think about it. I decided I would never talk about this war because hearing what people had to say was just stupid. They didn’t understand what was going on either but they wanted to sound tough and rough like “real” men.
About a month ago, I took a trip with one of my friends down to Washington, DC to visit my friend, David. That first night we went right into the city to tour around the monuments. Saw the ominous Washington tower, observed the ever cool attitude displayed in the Lincoln monument, and even made it across the river to see Jefferson. They were all amazing and I would love to go back one day when I have more time, but none of them impacted me so much as a long black granite wall. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial has forever changed the way I think about soldiers and war. There are 58,261 names on this memorial. When I went to www.thewall-usa.com to find that number, I also found a wall birthdays page. On this page I could see who would have celebrated their birthday today. They also put the ages of those soldiers, most were younger than I am.
David recently went on a trip to Vietnam to find out more about his grandpa who was a soldier in the Vietnam War. After he showed us his grandpa’s name on the wall, he told us his grandpa’s legacy. Just as the wars of today, I did not understand what the Americans were fighting for so after his grandpa’s story, I asked David to explain what the war was all about. As we stood that night in front of the memorial and he went on to explain all about the war, I was grateful for the shroud of night because if it had been daylight I would not have been able to hide the tears that were taking over my eyes. Many times I was overcome because of what these soldiers were fighting for. I could have spent an eternity looking at the wall and thinking of the story behind it
The war started with communist Northern Vietnam trying to take over South Vietnam. Not only did Vietnam have to fight the war against Northern Vietnam but there were also some communist groups in South Vietnam fighting guerrilla style against them. This is where the Americans come in. They see South Vietnam about to be taken over by this communist regime so they stepped in to try to save them. There is so much more to this history but this is where it got to me. There are over fifty thousand names on that wall, not five thousand or five hundred but over fifty thousand! And that’s not even mentioning all those soldiers who were able to come home but came home with missing limbs or some other physical scars or the traumatizing mental scars that war can leave. These were not lost soldiers because the American army is on the hunt for more kills. These lives were not taken because the American government wanted to show how they are the most powerful country in the world. No, these were lives of brave men and women who cared about the lives of the people of Vietnam. They fought for the freedom of civilians on the other side of the globe! These were strangers, didn’t even speak the same language, yet America sacrificed so many for their cause.
Now anytime I hear anything about any of the wars going on today I think back to that wall and that story and my heart swells up with pride. I may not be American but I know that is how both the Canadian and American armies are fighting today. Yes, they are fighting for our freedom and protection of our own countries, but they are also fighting for the rights of the civilians of those countries as well.
I guess this is somewhat of an apology to soldiers as well to the Canadians and Americans who support them. It’s not that I did not care; I just did not understand and chose to stay that way. I still do not fully understand, but I am not numb to it anymore. All those soldiers are real people with real names and real families. They all have real beds back home and maybe even have their own dog. Yet they choose to leave all of that behind to fight for complete strangers…
Forever in awe
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