1. For four hours, I watched the last two installments of The Vietnam War. These last two episodes drained me, even though Burns and Novick ended their seventeen hours of filmmaking with some positive developments, including POWs returning home, US veterans of the war returning to Vietnam with some working on reconciliation efforts between the two countries, the power of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, and eventual normalized relations between the USA and Vietnam. But, these two episodes were most memorable to me for detailing the story of disillusionment in the USA, especially during the Nixon and Ford years, detailing the impact on South Vietnam of US troops withdrawing and the Paris Peace Accords agreement that North Vietnamese soldiers could remain in South Vietnam, and detailing the chaos surrounding the eventual and inevitable fall of Saigon in 1975 and the grueling aftermath of the war ending.
Over the years I've read and listened to countless people's points of view regarding the Vietnam War and subsequent USA military intervention in other countries. I've listened to friends and people I'm related to. I've read and listened to politicians and historians and pundits. Many of these people assert their point of view regarding US intervention and our involvement in war with utter certainty, whether supporting or opposing what our country has done in the past and is doing today. I search for clarity and certainty. I've come to deeper understandings of why people support our war efforts and why others oppose them. As I dig into this history and into the present more deeply, mostly I experience feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of it all.
2. The Deke and I are trying to work out some decisions about what we'll be doing over the next twelve months. We enjoy going over to the Hill St. Depot, grabbing a thinking and talking table, enjoying a drink or two, and talking things out. We did this again late this afternoon. We didn't arrive at any conclusions, but I might have come to understand better why it's not quite time yet to make up our minds about what lies ahead.
3. We returned home. The Deke helped ice Christy's knee and then we went up to the Inland Lounge. When we walked in the door, Cas welcomed us and told me he wanted me to meet someone who knew a lot about me, but whom I had never met. In fact, this man and Cas had just been talking about me when the Deke and I coincidentally strolled in. The man's name is Gary. He lives in western Washington and also owns a residence in Wardner. Years ago, he was doing some searching on the World Wide Web that was Kellogg related and he came across this blog and for many years my daily posts have been a part of his daily reading. We had a fun conversation. He graduated from East Valley High school the same year I graduated from Kellogg and I learned more about his life living in the Spokane Valley and what he's been doing since then. My blog doesn't have a very big following. I know many of the people who read it, especially those who read it and post responses on Facebook, and I know the people to whom I send my posts via email. It was fun tonight to meet Gary and find out that he discovered that he enjoyed my writing and has been a regular reader of kelloggbloggin for several years.
No comments:
Post a Comment