Last flight to the gates of heaven, prose poem by Mike Marcellino

Last flight to the gates of heaven

by Mike Marcellino

Part I  The mission

It all became right clear to me

walkin' the dog to the beach

and back

to the gates of heaven

from mission number three.

i found that liberty, you see

can only be

if you respect other people's

rights.  Otherwise you got

nothin' but monopoly and friction.

i'm walking the dog to the beach,

and back

to the gates of heaven

from mission number three -

sometimes under attack

by dogs runnin' free 'cause their masters don't put 'em on a leach,

even if they have one.  Now i'd like to let my dog Button

run as free as he likes, but then, that wouldn't be liberty

and we'd all end up under attack.

Seems you can only have pure freedom when nobody's around.

If you want to live together without fightin' and wars

we have to all share our liberty.

Button, you see, is a young white Poodle

smart and stubborn as can be.  He doesn't much

mind any of the dogs, 'cause he's on a mission with me, you see.

He's a kind of blood hound without the hound.

Secretly enlisted in the K-9 Corps.

i'm tryin' to keep him sniffing for

ways to peace, so our world can still be.

We're walking to the beach

and back

to the gates of heaven

from mission number three

to meet up with all the critters we see,

maybe make a friend or two.

We can all have liberty to a degree,

and together, i truly believe

we can save their world from

man-made destruction,

if we can just be kind to each other,

from here to eternity

and back,

'stead of killin' each other and our planet.

Headed down through rattlesnake turtle dunes,

things kinda turned the other cheek.

Suddenly ahead i see a whole family

complete two boys and two dogs

on their leaches.

"That's the man you like,"

said one boy to the other.

And, low and behold

the man pulling his dogs on their leashes

retreated

letting Button and me

pass through safely;

they were like Moses parting the Red Sea.

We're still walkin' to the beach

and back

to the gates of heaven

from mission number three

when i spy a mighty subtropical

thunderstorm,

a scary black, silver and grey chain covering the western horizon,

wanting badly to spawn tornadoes.

At this point, we're on the point

and i spy a break in the clouds

maybe a path on our road to glory.

Eyeing the growing storm in some increasing disbelieve;

our luck seemed to have run out -

black-grey funnels tryin' their best

to take Button and me off the planet

to Oz.

Then, starting to think some last thoughts

walkin' the dog back from the beach

through the rattlesnake turtle dunes

it dawned on me,

"What a special dog this is;

he's either got some of that PTSD,

or he's much smarter than me."

The Dylan's lyrics run though my brain -

"Mama, put my guns in the ground

I can't shoot them anymore.

That long black cloud is comin' down

I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door"

Thanks, Bob, for those lines from "Knockin' On Heaven's Door,"

i really like that song

from the "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" sound track.

Here's your credit -

Copyright ©1973 by Ram's Horn Music; renewed 2001 by Ram’s Horn Music

Part II  Flashback No. 1

On our final run, Button

and me

i'm back in the wars again

thinkin' Audie Murphy

and To Hell and Back from World War II

now i'm back to tryin' to get back

from Firebase Cleveland.

i had no gun,

hardly ever did 

in the Vietnam War

out in the field, not even a tooth brush

or change for a dollar,

not a bite of food, not a C-Ration can

just notebooks, pens and

thirty-five millimeter cameras

wrapped in plastic,

wading through the rice paddies, sometimes chest deep -

my brothers watching my back.

Part III  Button and me

Trying to keep my cool

there was only one thing to do

right now

if Button and me

are gonna make it through the storm.

Start joggin'

and singin' this old song -

"Up the hill,

down the hill,

Airborne,

Airborne,

Army Rangers.

Up the hill,

down the hill,

Airborne,

Airborne,

All the way."

Over and over. I probably messed up the lines

but it's been a long time

before long a half century.

Then i got to thinkin' we just might

make it through the storm.  I geared back to fast walkin'.

Part IV The night i thought i'd died

These threats in the world

get me flashin' back

to the night i thought i'd died

in the sandy

forested wasteland

on the Cambodian border

at a firebase freshly carved out

Automatic weapons fire

all through the no moon night

shootin' the shit with bare chested GI's

filling bags

for some slim extra protection 

against mortar and rocket attacks.

i'm out there, right there where we're not supposed to be

me, some Army engineers,

artillerymen

and a battery

of big guns,  one five five millimeters

on tracks that looked like tanks.

i got dropped off on the convoy

thanks

to the bird colonel and his helicopter.

from my ride on the bird colonel's helicopter.

Letting me out, barely touching down,

that Alabamian, i guess as close as you can get

to my commanding officer, looked at me

without a word, laughing.  i didn't bother to look back.

He wasn't a bad guy.  He just wanted some good photos and stories

out of me

published so he could be a general.

We rolled on to the border

dust almost blinding.

Then right away in some no man's land

the bulldozers scooped up dirt

by the tons

firing hole for the big traveling guns.

"Boom, boom, boom,

blast, blast, blast"

the guns shook and thundered.

(me shooting pictures, taking notes, without ear plugs, close enough to feel the warmth of the steel)

The artillerymen humpin' all day long

unleashing hell out into the triple canopy jungles

where they enemy was supposed to be -

the NVA (the North Vietnamese Army)

and maybe some VC (Viet Cong) guerrillas i suppose

on their way to hit Saigon, and not the bars.

I don't know how many enemy there were out there somewhere,

hundreds,

maybe as many four or five thousand;

it wasn't any use to think about that.

"Who's out on the perimeter?" i asked the smart-assed lieutenant

who shut me out of his APC.

(armored personnel carriers to you folks back home).

"Mercenaries," he said without a grin.

i thought, "Man, what a fix i got myself in."

With dispatch the lieutenant said,

"Start diggin' your hole,"

he said as he went into his APC

probably to start partying before World War Three.

Our guns were silent, even Alpha's Angels

the whole troop had showered, except the reporter,

from canvas bags filled with cold running water

brought in by slicks, Huey D Model gunships,

(They didn't stick around.)

Nothin' like a cold shower to get some relief from the mind sapping heat.

i had little time.  The sun was going down.

Get the size just right.  i had no time to think

of the rectangular, grave sized bunker

to be topped with corrugated steel for a cover.

Be quick. 

At least someone gave me an entrenching tool

or i'd have been buried alive

before the fireworks began

on the night a thought i'd died.  That's another story.

Part V  Gates of heaven

Then, i got to thinkin' we,

Button and me, that is, just might make it 

walkin' the dog to the beach

and back

to the gates of heaven

from mission number three.

So my story to you,

at least the one from today

does have a happy ending.

Button and me, we did make it home.

Back in the day

toward the end

of the ten thousand day war,

all i know, for sure that is 

58,000 and more,

some of America's finest

young men and women

didn't make it back to the world.

These bands of brothers

i always remember.

They boarded the big airplanes

in body bags and boxes

on their last flight of freedom

to the gates of heaven.

Last flight to the gates of heaven by Mike Marcellino copyright 2012

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

"Asterisks after innocence"

"My Girls" Vietnam War, 1968
photo by Mike Marcellino

 Copyright 2009

Asterisks after innocence
by mike marcellino

Living
in forgotten times
shot, struck down
nine eleven
seven eleven
mortars
rockets
IEDs
fire balls
in the tallest towers
a thirty-eight stub nose
or
nine millimeter
in the corner store
asterisks after innocence.

Living
in forgotten times
shot,
struck down
by Viet Cong
terrorists
Audie Murphy -
Wha'd you say?
Hey hey,
Don't you know,
Barry Bonds
was once Willie Mays
asterisks after innocence.

Living in forgotten times
shot,
struck down
by armies
of good people -
Muslims
Germans
The NVA
Special Forces of The USA.
Shot, struck down
mothers
children
fathers
grandparents.
Shot,
struck down
listening to
dictators
democrats
deciders.
Asterisks after innocence
living
in forgotten times.

Copyright Mike Marcellino, 2008

Reflections on "Asterisks"


Perhaps it's the times - wars, collapse of our financial system and housing values, a deep recession.
Perhaps it's what a few people wrote in response to a column I wrote about the growing crisis of hunger in America.


Perhaps for both reasons, or no reason at all, I dug out a poetry song I wrote in early 2008, nearly two years ago. The piece was recorded by my first band, Split Peace, before my entry on Facebook and ReverbNation. I recorded and performed "Asterisks"  with Abe Olvido, a multimedia artist and sound innovator, in Cleveland.


This September, we formed a new folk band when, after a decade absence, I returned to a place I love, St. Augustine, Florida to visit an Army buddy, Tomas Texino, a musician and writer.  Working together, with Tomas, playing mandolin and guitar and composing the music, we recorded four songs, three new and one old, "Bondi beach."  Later, I traveled to visit music friends in Brooklyn, New York and there musician Randall Leddy joined with me, playing guitar and composing "Flatbush," about the West Indian neighborhood the Dutch founded in the 1500s.
  
Our new band is simply called Mike Marcellino and in nine weeks ranks in the top 10% of Folk Artists on ReverbNation's New York City, National and Global charts.

(The band's now has reached as high as #19 Top Folk Artists in New York City and is currently at #28. Our listeners come from virtually every state and many other countries, from England, Ireland and Australia to Germany, China, South Korea and Russia, among many others.)


Not sure what all this means, if anything, but I love to body surf and have learned to tolerate a wetsuit now that the Atlantic water's down to 65 degrees.

From time to time, I'll share past poetry songs and recordings, like "Asterisks," along with new ones.

"Asterisks" seems like such a long time ago, as so much has happened in the world since the late winter of 2008. I decided to post it here, now. Somehow the song seems more meaningful now than ever.

Postscript: Hard to image it's been nearly three years since I wrote this backstory about "Asterisk's after innocence."  It's a powerful song, even to the writer.  

A lot has happened in three years, but we've fallen on the New York City folk charts to #42.  But, as i think Iris Dement once said, "It's not a race."  Or maybe a lot of us said that. (I grew tired trying to keep up with the Internet world.)

I again offer this song to you as our children are so so important to our world.  We must love and care for them.  They should not go wanting and have a chance to be happy. 

If you'd like to listen to "Asterisks" go to the music box at the top of my blog here.  Let's us know what you think about it.  That would mean a lot, hearing from you all. - Mike

Encore for President Obama

"Search and destroy

photo by Mike Marcellino

South Vietnam, 1968

copyright 1995

Time for Department of Peace

By Mike Marcellino

Challenges Facing Americans
La partie trois

Tell me, why is it that President Obama, winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace, sounds more like a hawk than a dove.

Here is a quote from an AP story about the President’s reaction to winning the prize:

”…Obama acknowledged that, while accepting an award for peace, he was commander in chief of a country engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  "We have to confront the world as we know it," he said.  He said he was working to end the war in Iraq and "to confront a ruthless adversary that directly threatens the American people and our allies" in Afghanistan.

I will admit, Mr. President, that you got that right, in that, our enemy, and I image you are talking about the Taliban, is ruthless, harsh and totally nasty in war (and they way in which they treat Afghans, especially females) who in their belief (no matter how misguided) get out of line. 

But, Mr. President, ask any soldier, friend or foe, what war is.  “War is hell,” the soldier will reply. 

I asked you to recall what soldiers have said about war, soldiers like Union General William Tecumseh Sherman in our Civil War.  To Southerners, Confederates if you will, brothers, soldiers and civilians alike, knew General Sherman for what he was – ruthless in war.  He was know for his “scorched earth” policy in burning Atlanta to the ground and then marching his army using a calculated scorched earth tactic leaving not a blade of grass or stalk of wheat standing, marching from Atlanta to the sea – Savannah, Georgia.  And, President Lincoln didn’t object to the general’s ruthless tactics waged against an already defeated enemy, in this case their fellow countrymen, and many literally brothers.  Here’s what General Sherman said about war:

“I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.”- William Tecumseh Sherman

As a United States Army veteran of the Vietnam War an since, I don’t know of a single combat veteran who does not respect the enemy, at least if the enemy was a good soldier, meaning and effective one, willing to kill or be killed.  In battle, soldiers don’t fight for a cause; they fight for their fellow soldiers, the fight to survive and to get the battle over with. 

I wonder, Mr. President, if you recall the scene in Apocalypse Now, the brilliant, dark, frightening soliloquy of Colonel Kurtz, an American Special Forces soldier, a hero, gone driven insane by the hell of war.  He spoke of the ruthlessness of the enemy, cutting off the arms of children after they had been inoculated by United States Army doctors.  If you haven’t seen Frances Ford Copula’s brilliant film, or don’t recall it, I suggest you watch it and ask your staffers to watch it too.  Many, perhaps most Americans find Apocalypse Now exaggerated.  Even I did for a while, but not after some reflection and talks with many veterans of fighting in Vietnam, as well as World War II, Korea, the Gulf wars, Iraq and Afghanistan.  I wrote about those wars as a newspaper reporter for more than a decade and learned even more working in veteran and military affairs for a congressman and mayor.  But I really learned that war is hell by being in Vietnam and talking with my fellow combat veteran friends over the years.  The men and women I talked with are all over the waterfront in politics, backgrounds and opinions, but they all agree that war is hell.

With that introduction, Mr. President, here is my second column about the war in Afghanistan:

Okie, dokie.  When I opened my soundless HP laptop this morning I was dumbfounded to discover President Obama had won the Nobel Prize for Peace.

Here's my take: The President talked the peace game during the campaign. Now he talks peace one day and war the next and gives serious consideration of escalating the war in Afghanistan. But, hand it to the Nobel Prize guys (hopefully girls too), they decided to give the American president a big nudge - the Nobel Prize for Peace, before he actually did anything in that regard. The reason - Their next chance to give him the prize is three years away, right in the heat of his campaign for reelection (Republicans and conservatives let alone right wing radicals are already tearing into him, i.e. some people putting out color posters with President Obama's picture with a Hitler-like mustache and another with the President hanging out with the Nazi dictator, mass murderer, and his henchmen). Well, all I can say is good luck President Obama, good luck Nobel Prize committee, good luck America, good luck Afghanistan, good luck Iraq, world, etc. Guess we just have to hold onto our tickets (aka, citizenships) and wait and see.

Okie dokie. My suggestion in the meantime to our President is” to ask one of your foreign policy advisors to read my commentary below then read or reread Fire in the Lake by Francis Fitzgerald about the fallacy and futility of the Vietnam War.  Many good books have been written about the Vietnam War but Fire in the Lake is the most insightful and documented in history. 

Fallicy in the Urban Dictionary, oddly, came up with the heading "Evangelical" and reference to the "American religion" tracing its origin to 33 AD. I'll give you the first fallicy listed: 1.the subjectivist fallicy: "I have faith" (translation: it's true because I believe it is).

In her book, Ms. Fitzgerald exposed how little we understood about Vietnam and the Vietnamese.  Yet we made up an excuse, The Gulf of Tonkin incident, and plowed ahead, ignoring history and opportunities to talk with our “enemy.”  We labeled it a war to stop communism, “the domino theory” in which Asian nations and others would one by one fall to communism.  How did we know that would happen?  The notion was just a political invention for an excuse to go to war in Southeast Asia.  In reality it was a war for power and control of resources. 

Even President Eisenhower in his farewell address warned us of the growing threat to the American democracy from within by the military industrial complex.  I would add political to his description of this “complex.”

“We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” – Dwight David Eisenhower

But, while I am at it, here are two more quotes timely and important comments of President Eisenhower, America’s commanding general in World War II who led our nation and its allies in defeating Hitler and the Nazis, the Axis – the ruthless dictatorships of Germany, Japan and their allies.

“We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. 

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.”

Both quotes speak for themselves.  Too bad former President George Bush, the most recent, didn’t read the latter Eisenhower quote before staring the wars in the Middle East.  I wonder if he ever saw another brilliant film, Lawrence of Arabia. Actually, Mr. President that film should also be required viewing.  The first quote is, gee, just profound.  It also reminds me of worrying ourselves to death. 

But, do not get me wrong, Mr. President.  In no way am I suggesting that we just throw down our guns and go home.   Now that we have fueled the flames of war and created a good deal of chaos, we can’t just stop on a dime, not even Mercury. 

Mr. President, I have an idea, a way for you to follow up on winning the Nobel Prize for Peace.  Why don’t you create a Department of Peace?  Give it as much power and status as waging war and military solutions to the world’s problems.  In that new department, make sure you set up an agency for civic action. 

The only good thing I ever witnessed in the Vietnam War, besides the incredible courage and sacrifice of our troops, was the thankless and unheralded civic action work done by soldiers and civilians caring for the wounds of victims, many children, and helping Vietnamese build refugee towns as a place to live after both sides did a great job of destroying their homes and villages.  And today, sadly we’re doing pretty much the same thing more than three decades after the end of America’s longest war in Vietnam.

Finally, Mr. President, once all the hoopla of the Nobel Prize for Peace subsides, ask Congressman Dennis Kucinich about how to go about setting up the Department of Peace.  After all it is his idea.  Maybe Dennis should have won the Nobel Prize for Peace.   He also ran for president, but he didn’t win that either.


Mike Marcellino, a two-time national award winning newspaper reporter is now a freelance journalist, poet and performance artist with the band, Ensor in St. Augustine, Florida and New York City


Encore for President Obama, copyright by Mike Marcellino 2009

Waiting down from Galilee, a poem

Waiting down from Galilee

by Mike Marcellino

What are we waiting for
sings a young Nashville girl
in a ballad for MTV.
Waiting down from Galilee.

What are we waiting for
asks an old man
piloting a ferry boat
to the South China Sea.
Waiting down from Galilee.

What are we waiting for
peace
to work
raise a family
faithfully.
Waiting down from Galilee.

What are we waiting for
divine intervention
in Tennessee
Vietnam
Gaza
Tel Aviv.
Waiting down from Galilee.

Waiting down from Galilee copyright Mike Marcellino 2008