Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   (530) 515-2137   Red Bluff Daily News   5/28/2019

They have not sacrificed in vain

The first thoughts about Memorial Day occurred while watching the season-ending episode of “Seal Team,” one of the finest recreations of America’s elite military branches on broadcast television in my memory. It is to the TV series genre what “Saving Private Ryan” was to the big screen and “Band of Brothers” was to cable mini-series. If I haven’t mentioned Seal Team already, I have been remiss; that outstanding CBS show has been well-promoted in its Wednesday time slot. The ending of season 2 last week means that you will have to watch for reruns until the next season begins. Those with streaming access may find it on a CBS source; it’s well worth the effort.

While top-notch writing, acting, excellent sets, locations and storylines recommend it, there is the added advantage of truthful reality (creative liberties aside) in the missions, the families, and interactions with American and foreign partners in the war on terror. So-called “kinetic” (combat) sequences build to an edge-of-seat, heart-stopping peak; elation mixes with frustration, disappointment, stress, anger, revenge and even crushing failure.

When a team member sustains an injury, or even death, the viewer cannot help internalizing the repercussions and loss, or obsession with returning to the fight. Both successes and failures carry forward into subsequent decisions and assignments, as well as the highly-valued reputations of the men and women involved. For Hollywood fair, it rises above all other similar military/clandestine offerings, such as the cancelled “Valor” and “The Brave.”

What came through with deep fulfillment, even heart-wrenching finality, were the successes against the worst of our terrorist and drug cartel enemies, as well as the inevitable deaths and injuries that accompany those we remember on Memorial Day. The phrase “All gave some and some gave all” plays out wherever our soldiers, sailors, flyers and Marines deploy. They risk the ultimate sacrifice for our nation, our Constitution, our way of life, our freedom—but mostly, as is oft-repeated, for their buddy, their team member, their platoon companion.

For every returning, fully-adjusted military veteran, we acknowledge those whose lives were given in the hope of rejoining family and friends, but for whom reality would deliver the alternative: reunion in the afterlife with loved ones past and future, for those with faith. That range of outcomes enveloped the “Seal Team” series, just as for those in real life whose loved ones put on the uniform and selflessly go to their assigned duties and stations. My flag flies for them all.

While watching the always excellent, reliably emotional PBS “National Memorial Day Concert,” I noticed the framing of the wars in which Americans have fought and died. The 2^nd World War section made prominent use of the imagery and visages of the undeniable enemies of America, our allies and those subjugated by Hitler’s Nazi juggernaut. The plain evil of those we fought and defeated could not be missed.

The Korean War was accurately described as an aggression by the Communist north, together with Russia and China, against the relatively free people of the southern half of that nation. The literal North/South Korean division did not exist until after the truce. While described as “the forgotten war” it left no ambiguity that America and the United Nations were on the side of right, the cause of liberation from despotic, communist aggression.

When the Vietnam War segment began, a nearly identical causal setup—aggression by communist North Vietnam with unmasked military support from communist China against a relatively independent, free South Vietnam—could have been easily, plainly presented. It was not; it almost came across that our military sacrifices and efforts served no purpose beyond the valor and sacrifices of the individual men and women who suffered and died.

I call it the “Ken Burns-ification” of that war, involving not only the muddled, jaundiced, half-truths and ignored history in the Burns/Novick mini-series, but also the literal half-century of leftist, communist-sympathizing narrative driven by the “first draft of history,” written by anti-war liberal news media. Vietnam veterans, when polled, have expressed pride in the cause for which they fought and have said they would do it over again.

Yes, the regional political overview and respective worthiness of our South Vietnamese allies could be questioned, but the righteousness of American and allied military defense of the aggressed-on South was not generally in doubt. At least not outside of the same coalition that, to this current time, aligns itself with America’s opponents and enemies: the leftist, progressive Democrat party, news media, and academic elites.

Whether in sympathetic alliance with Russian/Chinese/North Vietnamese communism, communist dictators in Cuba and now Venezuela, or the totalitarian, fundamentalist Islamic Iran—America’s domestic supporters of international despotism and leftism remain unashamed, even anti-American in some cases and groups. This bears mentioning on Memorial Day: We acknowledge the just causes of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice; we deserve a sober assessment of how—notwithstanding the mistakes of policy, tactics or intelligence—America’s enemies (North Vietnam, Iran, etc.) are encouraged to kill our military when they see what could be called “the fifth column” working to undermine our efforts.

Suffice it to point out that we now have a concerted effort to apply well-deserved sanctions and pressure against Iran’s despotic theocracy that has the blood of hundreds of America’s finest soldiers and Marines on its hands. It is America’s, and our ally Israel’s, most diabolical, deadly and determined enemy with a distributed terrorist network and a strategy of delivering attacks while remaining directly blameless.

Leaving personalities aside, we have a pattern of Democrats that conspired with North Vietnam against America, the USSR against Reagan, and now with Iran against American efforts to bring that nation to heel. I don’t hesitate to lay blame where it belongs for encouraging our enemies to kill us when possible.