America's wars: "Cold Mountain" to "Ohio"

"You Will Be My Ain True Love" is a song written and performed by Sting and Alison Krauss from the 2003 film Cold Mountain The song was nominated for an Academy Award, a Grammy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.


America's wars:  Struggle for our national conscience
By Mike Marcellino


The last in a Memorial Day series on war in music, words and images

Doc and The Lady perform "Ashokan Farewell" at Cowboy Poetry in Elko, Nevada in 2009.  This haunting and beautiful song, written by Jay Unger in 1982, was the opening music in Ken Burn's remarkable PBS television mini-series "The Civil War."  


(An interesting note:  the annual Cowboy Poetry Festival was in the news this spring because politicians argued over the nation's $14 trillion debt while the festival is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Some Republican leaders want to eliminate federal funding of many of the government's program that help fun the arts, including music and Public Television.  It's a sign we as a nation are in serious trouble when our leaders want to take away our music and other art and humanities programs.)


Cold Mountain, an historical fiction novel, written by Charles Fraiser, won the National Book Award in 1997. It was later adapted for the screen by director Anthony Minghella in the 2003 film "Cold Mountain," starring Jude Law, Nichole Kidman, and Rene Zellwager. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Jude Law, and won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Renée Zellweger.  I highly recommend both the book and the film.


The Civil War, 1861-65, counting both Union and Confederate deaths, was the bloodiest war as far as American deaths in our nation's history.  There were a total of 625,000 deaths, more than the 405,399 American troops who died in battle or otherwise in World War II.  The Civil War saved the union and set the wheels turning to abolish slavery, though our nation still struggles to achieve equality.  World War II saved the world from oppression and dictatorship and halted the Nazi slaughter and extermination of 20 million people, including six million Jews.  World War II claimed the lives of 73 million people.  There were many opportunities for nations, including the United States, to stop Hitler and the Nazis but nothing was done.


When I checked with the U. S. Department of Defense data on U. S. military deaths in the nation's wars, they identified the Vietnam War as "the Vietnam Conflict."  As a Vietnam veteran I wish DOC would finally change its terminology and admit Vietnam was a war.  A total of more 58,000 American troops died in that war, in battle and otherwise.  

Search and Destroy, Vietnam War, TET Offensive, 1968, photo by Mike Marcellino

Here is "The Walls of Fire," Mike Marcellino's poetry music ode to the sacrifice of American soldiers form the Civil War to Afghanistan -


"The Walls of Fire" on Reverbnation


The United States could have talked to Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Vietnamese nationalist movement, after World War II but we didn't.  Minh had used much of the American Declaration of Independence in framing the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence.  To learn more about the Vietnam War, including its origins and the history of the Vietnamese people who had defeated the Chinese as well in the 15th Century, read, Fire in the Lake by Frances Fitzgerald in 1972). Instead we bankrolled the French war in Indochina against Minh's Việt Minh defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.  American government officials, including President Eisenhower would late admit that the Vietnam War was about protecting U. S. interests in the raw materials in Southeast Asia.  Eisenhower said if Vietnam fell other counties would fall to communism like dominoes.  Later, President Eisenhower, who as an Army general led the U. S. forces to victory in World War II, warned the American people of the danger of the growing power of the industrial-military complex in the United States.

"My Girls" Vietnam War, 1968 

Photo by Mike Marcellino, copyright 2011

To date the war in Afghanistan has claimed the lives of 1,219 American troops in battle and otherwise.  In the various Gulf wars since 9-11 in 2001, we've lost a total of 4,847 troops.  We still have 50,000 American troops in Iraq and 100,000 in Afghanistan.  


Here is the latest U. S. soldier to die in battle in the war in Afghanistan as identified in a news release from the U. S. Department of Defense.  I couldn't help noticing that Army Specialist Adam Hamilton, 22, was from Kent, Ohio, scene of 
May 4,, 1970 shootings of students on the Kent State University campus by Ohio National Guard troops.  The National Guard soldiers were called in to the campus by then Governor James Rhodes in response to student demonstrations against the Vietnam War.  Four students were killed, nine wounded, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.

U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) News Release

On the Web:  http://www.defense.gov/Releases/Release.aspx?ReleaseID=14526 Media contact: +1 (703) 697-5131/697-5132 Public contact: http://www.defense.gov/landing/comment.aspx or +1 (703) 428-0711 +1

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 451-11 May 29, 2011

DOD Identifies Army Casualty             The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.             Spc. Adam S. Hamilton, 22, of Kent, Ohio, died May 28 in Haji Ruf, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.  He was assigned to the 4th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.             For more information, the media may contact the Fort Riley public affairs office at 785-240-1893, 785-239-3033, or after hours at 785-210-8867. As Memorial Day 2011 nears and end, I leave you with this powerful song, "Ohio," written by Canadian folk rock  singer Neil Young.  It was probably the best known anti-war song and deals with the shootings at Kent State.  Here's Crosby, Still, Nash and Young and "Ohio."   It reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100.

"been down ta Las Cruces" by Mike Marcellino

Organ Mountains, Las Cruces, New Mexico

been down ta Las Cruces

by Mike Marcellino

A soldier's reflection:  From the Cold War to Vietnam and Afghanistan 

Written in 2007 by Mike Marcellino, the poetry song was originally recorded and performed by Mike's first band, Split Peace in Cleveland and again recorded by his new band, the Mike Marcellino Band, accompanied by musician Tomas Texino, composer and producer.

In the piece, Mike recalls living in Las Cruces, New Mexico, a few months after returning from the Vietnam War where he served in the U.S. Army as a combat correspondent and photojournalist.  He sent the winter a tiny trailer outside a small horse ranch in the desert hills near the Mexican border.  His most enjoyable time were walking through the desert hills and escaping to Juarez, Mexico, now one of the most violent places on earth.

You're invited to listen on the music player on Mike's Networked Blog, or visit our band website and be a fan of our new folk band.

ReverbNation

Las Cruces is near the White Sands Missile Range and not far from McGregor Range, near El Paso, Texas.  It was on this range in 1967 that Mike, using a Pentax with a 300 mm lens, photographed in color and black and white the test firing of  Army Hawk missiles. The photos were picked up on the Associated Press wire and transmitted around the world.

For his first person story and photographs, published in "Army Times" and other newspapers, Mike accompanied a Hawk missile battery, part of the 32nd Army Air Defense Command stationed throughout in West Germany to defend against a possible attack by Soviet army during the Cold War.  This was before "the fall of the Berlin Wall" and the Soviet Union, reunifying East and West Germany.

Today, in part, the Army uses McGregor Range to practice urban warfare in a desert setting.  They call it "urban ops pursuit."  These soldiers and others like them are certainly tuning up for fighting in the Afghanistan War.  Some will die or be wounded in service to their country.

US Army National Guardsmen from C Company, 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry Regiment, dash out of a building in pursuit (US Army photo)

Meanwhile, here are the lyrics of a song written by a soldier just back the the Vietnam War, the nation's longest war, taking the lives of more than 58,000 American troops.

been down ta Las Cruces
by Mike Marcellino

been down ta Las Cruces
by Mike Marcellino

been down ta Las Cruces
one time,

down ta
sundown wine
color slide pictures
of mists rising from
the dusty brown
tumbleweed town.

been down ta Las Cruces
down ta the circle
of six can't stand up inside
trailers
beside the coral
sleeping in the afternoon.

been down ta Las Cruces
down ta walking
desert brush hills
with mountain lions
and pretty fast rabbits.

been down ta Las Cruces

waiting for spring

down ta
Sunland Park

quarter horses

getting lost in
Juarez,

lost in Juarez.

been down ta Las Cruces
down ta

inside

my worn,
torn
second field forces
jacket
sittin' in

the backyard
sun beatin' down
makin' me feel

warm again.

been down ta Las Cruces
one time.

Copyright Mike Marcellino, 2007

The fog of Afghanistan

War's outcome rests with people's will
By Mike Marcellino

Part 3 of a 3 part series on America’s course in the Afghanistan War


Today I was asked what at first seemed to be a simple question about a recent column I had written about America’s course in Afghanistan and the escalation of the war. The column was called, “Afghanistan: Different viewpoints, same ol’ same ol.’ The column cited a BBC of an interview with a senior American diplomat and Marine captain in Iraq and a Stars and Stripes story about what U. S. troops are encountering fighting and community building on the ground in Zabul Province, a Taliban stronghold.


“You have to ask yourself, ‘what are the major powers doing in a backwater such as Afghanistan??’” a reader asked. He used two question marks and I would see why trying to answer his question.


What we are doing in Afghanistan? Like some people say on Facebook about their relationships –“It’s complicated.”


One answer could be that the United States leaders fear facing hostel governments in the Middle East and South Asia threatening our oil supply (Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan).


A number of major powers have interests at stake, including the United States, Russia and China. In addition the struggle to control oil supplies, Russia and China have large Muslin minorities.


The answer may be the old Cold War “domino effect” is back in vogue in Washington. Politicians and military leaders had believed that if one country would fall to Communism then others would follow. This was the rationale for the Vietnam War, along with control of natural resources of Southeast Asia.


The United States feared the spread of Communism and yet, even though we lost the Vietnam War to the communists, other nations didn’t fall and the Soviet Union collapsed.


The decade long war in Southeast Asian cost 6 million lives, including 58,000 American troops. Some argue that just fighting against communism in the Vietnam War led to its collapse in the Soviet Union. Interestingly, Vietnam is now rather prosperous with many resorts on the South China Sea beaches and increasing tourism.


Since the beginning of the Middle East wars in the early 1990s, 
U. S. policy makers have put communism on the back burner and Islamic fundamentalist insurgents and terrorists on the forefront. Radical Islam is the “evil” we must confront with force, not communism, at least for the time being.


Afghanistan has been embroiled in political turmoil and war for 35 years with leftists, monarchists and Islamic fundamentalist and minorities battling for power. In the late 1970s the Soviet Union set up a communist government in Afghanistan. In a 9-year war, Afghan Islamic fighters, the mujahedeen, defeated the Soviet army. The country was devastated, as one million Afghans died and millions more fled the country as refugees.


Everyone agrees the present Afghan government is corrupt and lacks wide popular support. The country is rather lawless. Most of the people are poor and illiterate. The poppy crop supplies much of the heroin for the world’s illicit drug trade and funds the Taliban and other insurgents.


The answer may be that we’re convinced that in Afghanistan we’re in a holy war, with good fighting evil. Many fundamentalist Christians in the U. S. armed forces, including senior military leaders, believe they are engaged in a holy war.


Radical Islamic fundamentalist, principally al Qaeda and its supporters believe they are waging a holy war against the “infidels,” or non-Muslims.


One answer may be a resurrection of the Crusades of the 11th Century. Each side of course believes the other to be “infidels.”


Both “holy wars,” some historians and observers believe are rooted in the timeless desire for power and control, whether it be a cave, a country or the world.


Whatever the reason for the U. S. involvement in Afghanistan, we’ve decided that force and violence are the only solution. The 
U. S. won’t talk to the Taliban until they surrender and the Taliban won’t talk until the U. S. forces leave the country. There seems to be little attempt to break the deadlock.


Regardless of the answer to the question, ultimately the outcome of the war and the nature of Afghanistan will be determined by the Afghans.


The present U. S. strategy in Afghanistan seems to be predicated on the belief that we are engaged in a worldwide war against extremists, including the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.


A few political leaders, even Vice President Joe Biden to an extent, along with senior diplomats, military and intelligence officers believe in a narrow focused strategy to defeat al Qaeda.


President Obama, Secretary Clinton and our military leaders have rejected that strategy, believing that Afghanistan is the den of al Qaeda.


As a result 30,000 more U. S. troops are going to Afghanistan bringing the total of 10,000. Next spring the U. S. plans to attack Taliban strongholds in rural and urban areas, beginning a new "ground up" strategy of rebuilding Afghanistan in the towns and villages.


We plan to step up the training of Afghan troops, start turning security over to them and in the middle of 2011 start withdrawing U. S. troop “if conditions on the ground permit.”


That’s the strategy the U. S. used in losing the Vietnam War. President Nixon called it “Vietnamization.”


South Vietnam had an army of two million, one of the largest in the world at the time of its defeat by North Vietnam, two years after U. S. troops withdrew.


The likelihood of the Afghan army being able to secure the country is questionable. Factionalism and lack of confidence in and corruption of the present government must be overcome. Afghanistan isn’t much of a nation for nation building.


“What are the major powers doing in the backwater of Afghanistan?”


“It’s complicated.


The outcome of the war is simpler.  It lies with the will of the Afghan people.

Afghanistan, Vietnam: "same ol', same ol'"

Troops war view differs from Washington 

by Mike Marcellino

Part 2 of a 3 part series on America's course in Afghanistan

The more leaders tell you things are "different" the more they seem the "same."


In a nutshell, that's what I'm piecing together in another installment of my series - "America's Course in Afghanistan."

In Vietnam, where I served in the U.S. Army as a combat correspondent at the height of the war in 1968, they told us the body counts, how we were killing them 10-1 or more.  The told us how most of the country was now "pacified." (Sometimes pacification took B-52 bombs, endless jet strikes, ship salvos, artillery fire and agent orange.)  They told us we're winning "the hearts and minds."

The more reading, the more recalling , the more researching, the more America's involvement and increasing escalation in the civil wars in Afghanistan and Vietnam fit a saying learned on the streets of Cleveland  - "same ol', same ol'. 


In today's interview with the BBC, Matthew Hol, an ex-Marine captain in Iraq who resigned as the senior civilian in Zabul Province, says only political action, not the troop surge, will settle the 35-year civil war in Afghanistan.  He also estimates 500,000 troops would be needed to subjugate the countryside. 

(See the BBC story)

BBC interview with Matthew Hoh

More than 500,000 U.S. troops were in South Vietnam at the height of the war in 1968.  That effort allowed U.S. and South Vietnamese forces to control the major cities, but not the rural areas in a country of 65,000 square miles and 16 million people.  Afghanistan has nearly twice the land area (119,000 square miles) and population (30 million) and a terrain even more difficult, if that's possible.


President Obama and U.S. military leaders say the Afghanistan war isn't another Vietnam. 


(In the Vietnam War, U.S. troops pulled out in 1973 after a decade long war.  Three years later, the corrupt and controversial government and army of South Vietnam collapsed weeks after the North Vietnamese army invaded.)

A report November 12 "Stars and Stripes" from Zabul Province, a Taliban stronghold and route from Pakistan, American soldiers tell a view of the war much different from our leaders in Washington. It reminds me of that similar difference between the capital view and the reality on the ground in the war 40 years ago in South Vietnam.  


Drew Brown's interviews with soldiers from the U.S. Army's 5th Stryker Brigade from Ft. Lewis, WA, are telling in this excerpt -


“During the three-day mission in the Chinehs, a number of soldiers said that even though the area had been identified as a suspected Taliban stronghold, the villagers were the friendliest of any they had encountered in Zabul. But when officers asked about the Taliban, they were usually met with blank stares or polite, noncommittal responses. Most villagers denied knowing anything about the Taliban. Some made slashing motions across their throats. ‘You stay here for one and a half hours in our village, and when you leave, the Taliban will come in our homes and beat us or worse,’ said one man. Replied 2nd Lt. James Johnson, 23, of State College, Pa.: ‘Well, there’s nothing I can do to help you, if you don’t help yourselves.’”

(See "Stars and Stripes" story)

"Stars and Stripes" story from Aabul, Afghanistan

Sounds awfully familiar to me as I covered the Vietnam War as a US Army combat correspondent and my stories and photographs were often published in "Stars and Stripes."

It also seems, even with the surge of 30,000 more U. S. troops to total of 100,000 won't be enough.  As many as 500,000 (including Afghanistan government forces) may be needed to get the job done. The job being either defeating or at least beating the Taliban and other insurgent forces back enough to allow the Afghanistan army and police to keep the peace.

Though U. S. troops have been in Afghanistan for nine years, the effectiveness of Afghan security forces remains uncertain.  What's odd about that is Afghanistan's insurgent forces, the Islamic mujahedeen, defeated the Soviet Union in a nine year war ending in 1989.

In 1996, the Taliban, a radical Islamic group, came into power in Afghanistan, but, by 2001, with help from the United States, the Northern Alliance, a group of minorities, overthrew the Taliban.

While all this is pretty factual summary, if you stop to think about it, it sounds bizarre. It reminds me of the Abbott and Costello comedic question, "Who's on first?  Afghanistan also has the same chaotic ring of the Mexican revolution in the early 1920s,

The Afghanistan and Vietnam wars are also reminiscent of a scene in "Lawrence of Arabia." After the Arab army, led by British Maj. T. E. Lawrence, had defeated the Ottoman Empire, German ally in World War I, they couldn't get along well enough to keep the power on and water running in Damascus.

The winner in Afghanistan may be who is willing and able to fight and die and not give up.  One thing seems certain; people don't like to be occupied by foreign armies.  History tells us the people in far flung countries didn't like the oppressive rule of the emperors of Rome, and the Roman Empire collapsed.

In a recent commentary in "Dandelion Salad," an Internet blog highly critical of America's military involvement in the Afghanistan, Rick Rozoff indicates that documents show that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal estimates a combined army of 500,000 U. S., Afghan and NATO forces will be needed to win the war.   

 A foreign soldier on the ground in a civil war quickly understands that the will of the people who live there decides the outcome.


In the Stars and Stripes story, an Afghan villager tells a US Army officer what it will take to end the war -


"We asked what can be done to improve your situation here," (1st Lt. Christopher) Franco said. "They said, ‘Our problems will be resolved when you guys leave and we can sit down and talk to the Taliban leaders.’ At least they were honest."


Mike Marcellino, a national award winning civilian journalist, served in the U. S. Army as a combat correspondent and photographer in the Vietnam War

America's war in Afghanistan: "Nothing is written"

Peace route in South Asia through India and Pakistan 

by Mike Marcellino 

Part 1 of a 3 part series on America's course in Afghanistan

Why can't the United States resolve human rights problems peacefully, without the use of force, any longer? 

Secretary Clinton says the U.S. won't talk unless the Taliban throws down their weapons (surrender). 

Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, says they won't talk until the U. S. and NATO forces leave Afghanistan (surrender). Oddly, Omar was America's friend when he lost an eye fighting against and Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s. 


And, the war and violence in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan escalates and widens. 


According to an article written by Raja Karthikeya in Asia Times Online Nov. 25, 2009, the way to peace in Afghanistan is through India and Pakistan.  Interestingly, the author never mentions the United States or NATO once in his article.


One wonders if American and European diplomats and political leaders are listening to the voices of reason, peace, history and politics of South Asia.  Afghanistan, Pakistan and India share that region, its history and current entanglements.  Granted Afghanistan has ties to the Middle East.  And as Karthikeya points out, the Taliban doesn't seem to fit anywhere, and appears to be more an ideology than a political movement. 


I highly recommend reading the article by Karthikeya, a researcher for the Center for Strategic Studies in Washington D.C.


Here's the link to the article -
A route for South Asian peace through Afghanistan

The historical problem with the view of United States' diplomats and political leaders is the function, for the most part with blinders on - seeing the word in America's view without really looking at nations through their eyes of their own people.


America hasn't always had her provincial blinders on.  Two cases in point that I can testify to from my experience in our national government as an aide to one of the most respected congressman and champions of human rights in our country's history.


In the past, the United States has ended oppression in the world without the use of military force. America brought freedom to Jews in the Soviet Union and ended the longest period of marshal law in world history, bringing freedom to the Taiwanese. 


I can vouch for the fact that oppression can be ended and peace achieved without a shot being fired.  


From 1983 to 1987, I served as an as an aide to former U. S. Congressman Louis Stokes of Ohio and worked successfully with many people in the United States and the world to resolve, without military force, critical human rights problems that at the time seemed insurmountable in the Soviet Union and Taiwan.  Both human rights matters existed within the backdrop of tensions over the Cold War and the threat of war between China and Taiwan. 


As an Englishman, "Lawrence of Arabia," (or, at least, actor Peter O'Toole in the Academy Award winning film), once said:  


"Nothing is written.


In my book, "Nothing is insurmountable."  


Copyright Mike Marcellino 2009

The surge in the Afghanistan War: And what then?

The war in Afghanistan:  a commentary 

by Mike Marcellino

A child is crying outside as I write this.

Don't know what to make of it, except I thought that a lot of children and other folks in the world are crying today.

How are you today?

I’m rather overwhelmed by thoughts of war, and have tomorrow night's radio show staring in the face.

Personally, I am rather ticked, thinking of reality of pouring 30,000 more US troops, plus 10,000 from other NATO countries into Afghanistan.

As I journalist I'm working on the story. I've found some very interesting facts and aspects that I think's been overlooked.

So here's my commentary prospect, off the cuff, riddled with past and recently acquired information stuffed into my Swiss cheese brain.

One simple question -

When, and it's only a question of when, U.S. and NATO forces pack their bags and leave Afghanistan?

And, what then?

Seems to boil down to what level of death and destruction the American people are willing to tolerate.

When the people, you know the “people,” the ones that actually fight America's wars. Call them “Joe six pack” if you like, reach their breaking point, they'll end the war, just like what they did with Vietnam. They'll end if and any politician who resists that tide will follow along or be swept away, out of office.

Like the TET offensive in Vietnam, all it will take to have a million people in DC is some terrible scenes on TV, like the ones on our screens during the 10 years of the nation's first television war and our longest war. Scenes like a dozen Viet Cong taking over the US Embassy in Saigon for a few minutes till they were wasted by U. S. troops, or and Afghan general on CNN shooting some Taliban guy point blank in the head with a 45, just like what happened in TET.

Remember there's nothing like the smell of napalm in the morning. It, it smells, “like victory” as that cool actor who's name always is missing, oh, Robert Du val. Now I know I'm on top of my game today. Anyway, the wars in Afghanistan and Vietnam reminds of instant replay, like on football.

How many people know, or even remember, that the Viet Cong, insurgents, our primary enemy in the Vietnam War, were wiped off the face of the earth during the TET offensive - a surprise attack by the combined forces of the VC and NVA (North Vietnamese Army), tens of thousands all across the country on the day of the cease fire for the Vietnamese New Year. Most all of the soldiers of the of South Vietnam (ARVN), the country we propped up for two decades or more, were at home bringing in the New Year. Can't image there was much to celebrate.

I wasn't on R & R surfing Bondi Beach that TET, I can tell you that. I was in a bunker at night out on the perimeter of a base camp at the tip of the Iron Triangle, a VC stronghold we never took, in charge of myself and two or three other GIs, because I had three stripes. Technically one stripe as I was a “specialist five” not a buck sergeant. I served in the United States Army as a combat correspondent and photojournalist for a year minus a seven day drop.

For the only time in a year, a call came in on the radio, soldiers affectionately called “a prick 29.” A voice I didn't know, someone in charge I guess, told me that 5,000 NVA regulars were headed for our base and I was on the perimeter. He said nothing more and I began to wonder if I could find the two wires and set the claymores off around the bunker. And wondered how well I could fire the l60 caliber light machine gun I'd never used.

Pounded by U. S. air strikes and artillery and the Big Red One, the First Infantry Division, the one Clint Eastwood was in, the North Vietnamese force overran the provincial capital instead. A lot of folks were killed, most of the civilians and I gave blood the next day in a hospital where an awfully pretty Philippine nurse I knew was a nurse.

America infantrymen, called “grunts,” artillerymen and jet fighter pilots kick the enemy's. And, all over South Vietnam our troops won every battle, decimating the entire Diet Cong, tens of thousands of “insurgents.” Funny, we never called them “insurgents” in Vietnam, that civil war.

We lost, though we won, perhaps one of America's most unequivocal military victories. And yet, we lost. The American people decided they had enough, enough of horror on their televisions, enough of death and destruction, enough of their sons and loved ones coming home in body bags.

Trouble is how many Americans actually know now what happened forty years ago in the rice paddies, mountains and jungles of South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos? How many really knew what happened then? I know there's some today with short memories, or prefer to short memories. Reality may not fit into their political agenda or scheme to win riches like rice and oil, power and control.

Well, at least we don't have to deal with the “domino theory” where if South Vietnam would fall to the communists other countries in Southeast Asia and other sort of free countries all over the world would follow.

No, now we have a 21st Century version of the Crusades and of course, a lot of oil in South Asia and not to mention Iran and Israel and nukes. Is our thinking really that clouded?

Tonight President Obama appears to be following the course of LBJ, President Johnson, for those who may not recognize LBJ. Sadly, look what happened to that strong-willed Texan. He died a broken man, agonizing over the Vietnam War, what might have been, or was it the more than 58,000 dead Americans, hundreds of thousands with lifelong wounds with hundreds of thousands more wandering the streets of America, many eaten away with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Well, I have my own theory without dominoes.

What would happen if we rounded up all the Taliban leaders, and as many fighters as we could and kind of throw a big and talk, play some music? You laugh? That I know of as far back as the Civil War, and in the world wars enemies shared coffee over a fire, even sang Christmas carols together, at night too dark to fight. I'm not aware of U. S. troops in Vietnam getting together with the VC or NVA, however. A sign of the changing times. You'd have to ask our troops in Afghanistan about that, though we trained and supplied many of the insurgents, like the leader of the Taliban, to fight the Russians back in the 1980s. 

My plan would be to keep the dinner going until we found a way to stop the war dead, or agree to stop fighting, at least until we got together for dinner again.

Does that sound impossible? No more so than the likelihood of victory on our present course. And, I thought the American people had elected a new president because he had some new ideas, maybe some peaceful ones, of ways to end wars and stop staring them.

Does anyone really think the Afghan army and police will hold on to their country once we leave? Do you really think the army and police of a country where three quarters of the people, most living in villages can win the hearts and minds?

Do you really think we can succeed when the Russians failed? Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet leader at the time of their war in Afghanistan, does think so and he was quoted as such a few days ago.

After the last of U. S. combat troops left South Vietnam in 1973, did the South Vietnamese government survive? No. In 1975, the South Vietnamese Army folded their tents in face of an offensive by the North Vietnamese Army. Soldiers and politicians were the first to run and most of the only ones to get aboard the last U. S. helicopter out. I can still picture the television footage of that last chopper with people clinging to the skids.

Even one of our friends in Afghanistan, a warlord general turned politician, recently said flatly that the presence of US and NATO forces actually diminishes the will of Afghans to fight against the Taliban.

Afghans think it is now the war of the United States and NATO. Well, it is, isn't it? The real point is it's no the Afghans' war any more. So, it's not really about the Afghan people then, is it?

Making matters worse, the Taliban and other insurgency forces are killing Afghan civilians as a terror tactic to defeat the U. S. and NATO. And, their strategy is working. People believe, and it's hard to argue the point, that the insurgents will stop killing them, or at least not as much, when U. S. and NATO leave.

Now there's a military matter I must include. To an extent our soldiers don't have to aggressively fight the insurgents. We need to bring security to the cities and villages. Now this isn't easy mind you, especially in house to house fighting. Remember, the scenes on television from battles in Baghdad and Fallujah in the Iraq War? That kind of fighting is bloody awful.

And then there is the main Taliban, insurgent strategy – bombs, roadside, everywhere. Enough said. Then, war is hell.

If their present, illegally elected democratic government falls, will the Afghan people live in some degree of oppression? Yes. But ask yourself, how are they living now?

We'd be better off sending in 40,000 plows, rather than troops.

What would the Taliban do if we just started rebuilding, doing good things? At least other than defending ourselves. We'd be the “good guys” wouldn't we. Or at least we'd look more them.

What would the Taliban do if we started to relate to them as human beings, though one's we don't like and disagree with, rather than monsters?

Remember the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s? Many of the same insurgents, including the current leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, who defeated the Soviet Union were our friends against the Russians. Sounds rather twisted, doesn't it? Omar, a really tough guy, lost an eye defeating the Soviet Army. Just for the record, he's already quoted as saying we can't win.

How would the Afghan people react to a different course, activating my theory, of course?

How would the world react to a peace offensive, something never done before?

How would the world react if we started marching to the drumbeats of Gandhi and King, the spirits of Jesus, Buddha and Muhammed?

Maybe then, we'd have God on our side.

What would the Taliban do then?

Would it be better or worse?

It looks like we'll never find out.


Copyright by Mike Marcellino 2009

“The Walls of Fire. What a powerful piece"

Search and destroy, South Vietnam, 1968, photo by Mike Marcellino copyright 2009 

"It's like listening to time as it passes over the dead and damaged of wars past and present. It's a voice for peace, no a cry for peace and for the carnage to end...This (The Walls of Fire) lovely and haunting piece of poetry should be a world wide sensation" – Paul Donohoe, writer/editor, Tasmania, Australia

The walls of fire

By Mike Marcellino

The walls of fire
grow higher, higher
pools of blood
carnage
bodies of brothers
touching
rock cliffs and open fields -
Hornet’s Nest at Shiloh
Devil’s Den, Gettysburg.


The walls of fire
grow higher, higher
pools of blood
carnage
bodies of brothers
touching
sea to shining sea -
lost in the Argonne Forest
face down on beaches at Normandy
frozen by the waters of Chosin Reservoir.


The walls of fire
grow higher, higher
pools of blood
carnage
bodies of brothers
touching
paddies, highlands -
Nui Ba Dinh, the Black Virgin Mountain
the Ashau Valley
along the perimeter of Khe Sanh.


The walls of fire
grow higher, higher
pools of blood, carnage
bodies of brothers
touching
empty deserts
filled with giant rising suns -
Fallujah rooftops
unknown streets of Sidr City
barren mountains, caves of Tora Bora.


The walls of fire
grow higher, still higher
pools of blood
carnage
bodies of brothers
touching. 

The walls of fire copyright by Mike Marcellino 2009

I wrote this song earlier this year, but it seems the moment to share it as I feel the loss of my US Army brothers and sisters and the police officer at the Fort Hood massacre. It is also the eve of Veterans Day and I remember my brothers in arms that did not return from Vietnam and those living with the wounds, physical and mental, from our nation's longest war. I only hope that our soldiers can return home soon. 

Our new folk band, Mike Marcellino with Ensor expects to release a recorded version of this piece tomorrow, Veterans Day on ReverbNation and MySpace.

Our new folk band members are Mike Marcellino songwriter, vocals and Texino, mandolin, production - two Army "brothers" who served in the Vietnam War together and lived to make music together many years later. Musician Randall Leddy from Brooklyn played bass guitar and did the production of "Flatbush."  

To listen to our first three (now five) songs, recorded this fall in Brooklyn NY and St. Augustine Florida, go to My Band on Facebook or to ReverbNation and be a fan, help get our band off the ground (or beach).

Mike Marcellino on ReverbNation

My Band on Facebook

Listen now to our debut songs - "Flatbush" (with Randall Leddy on bass guitar and production) "Las Cruces" and "Amelia Earhart, soft silver wings" (with David Dowling on guitar) 

A listener says we're "unique" and I take that as a compliment. Listen for yourself, if you like, message your friends. And, remember Veterans Day is 365 days a year because our troops protect us every day and many give their lives or pay the price every day.

Since this was written our band has also recorded and released "Bondi beach" a poetry music story of a Yank's flight from Vietnam to Australia and facing big waves in the third most shark infested surfing beach in the world.