Where have all the flowers gone?
With the sadness that accompanies
loss and the passage of time, the Church of the Open Road looks back on the
fall of Saigon some forty years ago.
We reflect on those we knew in high school who took up the call to serve
– only some of whom returned home – and their brethren. We consider the impact on thousands of
my generation who carry with them the memories of both gallantry and
horror. We relive, through their
stories, the heartbreak of that last Chinook lifting off the embassy roof
leaving so many behind.
Belatedly, we thank them for their service and for their
unquestioned willingness to do what our country asked of them. We pray that our leaders will somehow
gather from history the wisdom to avoid such conflicts in our future.
Unfortunately, that aforementioned melancholy is reinforced
by the machinations of some in Congress and the halls of power who, though old
enough to have served in Vietnam, chose not to: those calling for a continued
interventions in a Middle Eastern and Central Asian lands with rich heritages, exceptional
cultures, ardent beliefs and righteous mores, which upon examination, are not
so different from our own.
When will they (we) ever
learn?
We claim to be a peace-loving
people. But true instruments of
peace would carry love, acceptance, and a sense of what our place in the
community of nations really is. We’d
need little else.
If America wishes to regain respect within the world
community, we should embrace the lessons of Vietnam: reexamining whether we, as
a people and a nation, are truly instruments of peace or catalysts for
something else.
© 2015
Church of the Open Road
Press
