McNamara’s Draft Babies
Robert McNamara is dead. He was US Secretary of Defense in the 1960s and known as the architect for the Vietnam War. He came to see the error of his ways but not before destroying the lives of millions. What is not known are the lives he created.
Back then the government drafted young men into the military. It may seem hard for today’s young people to believe, but the government forced people to go to Vietnam. If you were poor, uneducated or a minority, you got sent through McNamara’s meat grinder. If you were wealthy, connected or educated you got what they called a deferment. A friendly draft board might help if you had combined deferments like being a married college student with children doing essential war work. The results were a lot of sham marriages and what are called draft babies.
I sat with an old friend at her home in Iowa. She told me of a neighbor dying of cancer who confessed to his only daughter that he married his first wife while he was in medical school and gotten her pregnant to keep himself from going to Vietnam. He promised her the comfortable life of a doctor’s wife. They divorced after the war was over.
The daughter had to deal with a unique existential problem. Her very existence was a con, mere contrivance to avoid her father’s obligations while other people’s lives were destroyed. My friend said the fruit had not fallen far from the tree. At some point she must have learned that other people are expendable. The daughter spent her life using people and gaming the system just like her dad. The daughter abandoned her father as he fell ill. Too bad he couldn’t draft another daughter.
My friend looked looked up at the picture of her late husband over the fireplace. He would always be nineteen. They never had a child. He leaves a name on a wall in Washington DC. He would laugh when he heard people talk about free will and controlling your destiny. He said such people were fortunate to live in such protected insulated lives. After all, he was the one who protected them.
Here’s a message from Diamond Jim to his buddies in the boonies delivering the Ace of Spades. McNamara’s finally been drafted and he”ll be in country soon. Some wars never end.
And on that note, I’ll play you out with Credence Clearwater Revival’s song Fortunate Son.
Goodnight Vietnam.
Copyright 2009 DJ Cline All rights reserved.
Posted by dj in Blumbers, Commentary []