Jim McCreary
Hi Gar. Thanks for your reply! I'm glad this thread is bringing comments from others. I've always wondered about the military experiences of other RRHS grads. After high school, we seem to have gone in very different directions. I never spent much time there after 1964. The whole country changed dramatically after 1964.
In 1964, I don't think many of us thought about the "great geo-political struggle" between the West and Communism! We were young and wanted to get laid!
I majored in Economics at Ohio State. The last quarter, I took a graduate level course in the economy of the Soviet Union. There was not a huge amount of information available, but it was very obvious that the centrally controlled, socialistic/communistic societies were a complete failure. In 1968, the prediction was that the Soviet system could not last beyond the year 2000. As we know now, it imploded in 1991.
I'm sure the NSA knew much more about the Soviet Union than they would ever tell us ignorant citizens.
My problem with fighting Communism in the 60's was this: why we should fight a system that was already failing in the first place? Why not just wait it out until their fall? We knew that in 1968!
Of course, the answer is obvious. Desperate leaders there would take any kinds of risks with their own citizens to maintain and expand their power. The was no rule of law or constitutional government. We still needed to keep pressure on them in this great struggle of ideas. I just think it was tragic and sad that so many young men here had to suffer death, dismemberment, and PTSD, like Robin McElroy, and my friend Jeff in Billlings, Montana.
I think Vietnam was a short-term, political gamble by LBJ to ensure his re-election, and to prove that democrats were not soft on communism, as Barry Goldwater kept saying they were. My parents were hard-core Republicans, but they thought Barry Goldwater was a complete screwball and a disgrace to the republican party. They also didn't trust the military either. They thought Truman was right to fire MacArthur when he was about to attack China.
I guess my family is anti-military going way back in time. I still have the draft notice that my great, great Grandfather got to go into the Union Army during the Civil War. Did he serve? No. We think he was one of the people who avoided war by paying a $300 bribe!
I think radical Islam is totally unsuited to the modern world too. We need to keep those radical elements of Islam in check. After what they did to us on 9/11, I had no problem with attacking them. What got me about Saddam was that he wasn't religious at all. He was closer to being a socialist than anything. The Baath Party was a secular party. Why not attack Iran? Why not assassinate the Wahabi fanatics in Saudi Arabia?
What are we going to do in Nigeria? Can we use drones to kill the moslem fanatics holding those 200 or so girls prisoners? How involved should we be there?
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