- CounterPunch.org - https://www.counterpunch.org -

Vietnam: a History of Denial and Exhaustion

The Vietnam War is a history of exhaustion, as we can never see the guy in the camouflaged corner manipulating the whole damn thing. We just never want to see the truth, because the truth violates our entire core belief system. It’s like finding out your father sexually violated your younger sister. You just can’t believe it, and your little sister is lying about the whole thing. The little bitch… Because, if that really did happen, then all of your wonderful childhood memories with your father are wiped out. Your core belief system has just died. Your relationship with your father is over. How can you every love this man (Country) again?

For me, this is Vietnam in a nut shell. This is why we can be so aggressive when we don’t want to accept the truth. This is what destroys families. The brother still has to believe the father, when his father says that it is all a Lie. So, you eventually never see your younger sister again, because she is a lying little bitch. And, later in life, that little sister takes her own life. And, the brother blames her death on the fact that she had a drinking problem. The brother never looks at why his sister had a drinking problem.

We go to any length to protect the father and, of course, in the political sense, the Fatherland. That is the nature of human behavior when you cannot deal with the truth. You cannot deal with the pain you have to go through if that indeed is true. So, this brother finds himself on his deathbed someday, and his thoughts have nothing to do with his sister who died ten years before. That sister has drifted out to sea a long time ago.

But, there is further damage, because the sister had three children, and the brother had three children, and the bad blood between these six adults is so subliminal, they will never have a peaceful life. Such is the history of a family whose grandfather destroyed everything. And, when the father becomes the Fatherland, an entire country gets sick.

Denial becomes an art form. This is where the United States is, involving the Vietnam War. This is why history is re-written so we can all calm down. It wasn’t really the father who did this, but a stranger came through the window that night and rapped the sister. And, it was a different stranger that did it every week for seven years. The United States did not rape Vietnam, they did not commit mass murder, it was those dirty little Commies that came through the window every night. Ho Chi Minh was the reason this all happened.

The war in Vietnam was really started in good faith by decent people out of fateful misunderstandings. The fact that almost four million Vietnamese lost their lives is not something to be empathetic about. After all, they were all “Gooks.” That’s right, because Drill Sergeants clear across America said so. They were allĀ “Gook” little bitches, just like that goddam little sister.