Q+,

Great work so far. I'm a lowly meme maker, but I'll make a rare post.

It was 50 years ago this week that my father returned home from Vietnam. It's not the kind of anniversary most people celebrate. Hell, most people don't even track it. But many of the families whose courses have been inescapably altered will tell you that the reach of that war continues even to this day. I'm here at 3am typing this, because the thought of the experiences and the losses keeps me awake even now. That is nothing compared to the lost sleep, the nightmares, and the stress those who served dealt with and continue to deal with, even to this day. Yet somehow, we as a country have never dealt with that war. We have not even acknowledged what the physical events on the ground were, much less their implications on the lives of the veterans and their families.

We know what happened 150 years ago in the civil war, but we know damned little about what happened 50 ago to our fathers, grandfathers, husbands and neighbors. The reception by veterans of the Ken Burns series on the subject has been less than stellar in some cases, but I have to give the man credit for doing what no one else has really done in the modern era: given us even a platform to build on to discuss it. It's hard to know where to begin searching for answers. 50 years of mistreatment hasn't allowed veterans the luxury of discussing it. They were told not to even wear their uniforms when they got home. They were denied service when they went out to eat and drink. Many suffered from addictions started by the drugs being smuggled through the country, or they suffered from alcoholism. Mine luckily escaped without that fate. So many others were not so fortunate.

The veterans from that war are a limited and dwindling supply. That's why the time is now to release the records of that war. The political calls that made it, prolonged.it, and used it for their own personal gain. The military calls that cost so many so much. Hills taken only to be abandoned. Bridges built under fire, only to be used for a short time, and then blown up so they didn't fall into enemy hands. Airstrips upgraded, small sections at a time, because the planes were flying in/out at such a pace they couldn't shut down the whole thing. Planes flying by the dozen to remote outposts that didn't make logistical sense.

We watched a documentary as children of fighting in one of the cities. Curious children will ask as we did "is that where you were?". He replied with a chuckle "no, not that's not where I was. Where I was, there were only the Montangards, the Green Berets, and the spooks." I don't doubt the stories I've read of drug smuggling by "the spooks". I also don't doubt so many terrible things were financed by the profits they made from those drugs. The lives we spent keeping the war going. The lives ruined by the drugs. We call them clowns today, but its the same fight. The only way to end it is to shine the light of a dozen suns upon it. It has to stop. Thousands of Vietnam veterans paid the price then, and how many pay it now in Afghanistan defending the poppy fields? It has to stop. The nation has to heal. The only way that can begin to happen is to start to declas, en masse, the records of the Vietnam era. Let the choice to know be ours.

It is fitting that the only real acknowledgement of the war is a wall. Silent. Covered only in the scars of the names of the dead upon it. Covered in the tears of the vererans who lost their friends, and their families. Don't let it be the only record we get to view.

I know this will be read here. I know you're watching. Red Castle.