War communications

A friend of mine tells me how she views war:through communication with loved ones back home. For example, during the Second World War, she says, if you wrote a letter to your loved ones you would not be sure if they ever received it, and it would take months to receive a reply. She considers what it must have been like to share your soul and life with someone only to receive a response such a long time later - if ever.

During the Vietnam War, letters would take two or three weeks to arrive and telephone calls were made through radio services with a third party listening in as they set it up for you. She knows these details intimately, painfully, deeply, because these communications were with her fiancee whom she lost during that war.

Nowadays, she says, loved ones communicate via e-mail sometimes instantly, and telephone calls are frequent. How different is that? She wonders how it might affect everything about going to war.

I guess her fiancee was drafted, had no choice, to the Vietnam War. She's been wondering about how, today, people volunteer for service and what that feels like. She reflects how it is becoming harder to recruit people because who would want to join the military when we've been lied to and become confused about what we are fighting for.

Her face becomes serious, hard set as she thinks aloud about a possible draft in the near future.

"If there is a draft, all those Senators and Congress people, and certainly the Administration folks - well, their children better be drafted first. Let them feel what it's like!" She says.

Comments

[Ronni Bennett]

The rich and connected didn't serve in Vietnam; they're unlikely to serve in a new draft either.

[Joel]

During WW II, several members of Congress resigned and joined up themselves. It's a shame that the current crop of chickenhawks do everything they can to keep their darlings out of this war, but that tells you a great deal how they see other human beings -- as something to be exploited so they can enjoy wealth and power.

Oh for an FDR and New Deal style liberals.