"To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan." -- Abraham Lincoln, 2nd Inaugural Address

Everybody click exactly the

same way at the same time.
Screw it up and you clean the toilets.

Well, that was pathetic. I didn't even remember how to draw a Peace Sign. (You may have begun to catch on by now: I am the Drunk Driver of Visual Art. Why real visual artists even speak to me is a total mystery.)

I thought it was just the skeleton of an inscribed equilateral triangle, but it sure isn't. The two lower radii are at 225° and 315°, and the vertical line completely bisects the circle.

I must be getting old. (This will be excruciatingly rubbed in my face on 5 February.) I can't even draw a Peace Sign. Once there was a time when you couldn't even have group sex on pot and LSD if you weren't wearing one of these.

Well -- now I can draw a Peace Sign, okay, so like I remembered.

I KNEW (some of) THIS! from Wikipedia:

This forked symbol was adopted as its badge by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Britain, and originally, its use was confined to supporters of that organization. It was later generalised to become an icon of the 1960s anti-war movement, and was also adopted by the counterculture of the time. It was designed and completed February 21, 1958 by Gerald Holtom, a commercial designer and artist in Britain. He had been commissioned by the CND to design a symbol for use at an Easter march to Canterbury Cathedral in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in England.

The symbol itself is a combination of the semaphoric signals for the letters "N" and "D," standing for Nuclear Disarmament.

The number of American military combat deaths on the stamp

58159

is from Wikipedia's article on the Vietnam War. The article lists several different numbers.

Though the first and most important of all duties of all sergeants and officers is to Count Their Soldiers every morning, and after every battle, big, long wars tend to get very fuzzy about the numbers of dead soldiers. We end up with Unknown Soldiers, whom we venerate with particularly holy shrines. And then we just lose a few thousand soldiers; our government just can't say what happened to them, whether they lived or died or were lost or vanished, or deserted to the enemy, whether they're on the dark side of the Moon, or ended up in those secret mythical POW camps in the jungles of Southeast Asia which Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris are always rescuing their lost comrades from.

Some of this fuzziness isn't the government's fault exactly. (Well, it is, of course -- the government started the war.) When a big-ass bomb or artillery shell goes off in a crowd of soldiers, they all get blown into lots of pieces, and no matter how carefully you try, you can't accurately tally how many got blown up or who they were. Dog tags (see Figure 1 above) are supposed to help, but so far nothing works perfectly. If you have to run away in a hurry and leave a dead soldier, you're supposed to take one of his dog tags and kick it between his teeth, so when you come back in a few weeks, no matter how badly decomposed the corpse is, you can identify him.

Happy the blest ages that knew not
the dread fury of those devilish
engines of artillery, whose inventor
I am persuaded is in hell
receiving the reward
of his diabolical invention ...

"Don Quixote"
Miguel de Cervantes (1605)
(1612 translation of Thomas Shelton)

How many American soldiers, Marines, sailors, Air Force, Coast Guard died in combat or from wounds received in the Vietnam War? Nobody knows, no one will ever know with certainty.

For a long time after the Vietnam war ended and then the Memorial was built in Washington DC, I thought the number was holding steady at about 48,000. Then when I checked a few years ago, it had crept up to 52,000. Down below in the black-ink text, that's the number I tossed out from memory.

I've cited the figure -- 58,159 -- of Webster's New World Dictionary of the Vietnam War, 1999, edited by Marc Leepson. You'll have to read it to find out how he arrived at that figure, and maybe it will explain why it's kept creeping up through the decades.

Sometimes soldiers die slowly, with years between combat trauma and eventually dying; first the military hospitals, and then the Veterans hospitals, just can't put Sgt. Dumpty back together again, but he holds on for years. That's what happened to one of my pals. He died back home as a discharged civilian and as a heroin addict, but I suspect it was the smallarms fire to his head on a boat on the Mekong River that really did it. But he took so long to finally die, with so much distance between him and the war, that the Department of Defense felt no obligation to add him to the war death tally and chisel his name on the Memorial.

At the top of the Wikipedia article is a padlock with this very interesting notice:

======
Because of recent vandalism or other disruption, editing of this article by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled. Such users may discuss changes, request unprotection, or create an account.
======

Wikipedia is notoriously vulnerable to virtual vandalism, but why has its Vietnam War article become a particular target at this particular moment?

My guess is that as the Iraq War slogs on interminably into military hopelessness, and more and more American soldiers and Marines come back to Dover Air Force Base in flag-draped coffins, and as Bush's Folly more and more resembles the disaster of Vietnam, American Patriots (i.e., Bush supporters and war psychos who never served in uniform) are taking their political frustrations out on our dying echoes of Vietnam, which critics of the Iraq War keep pointing to.

Bush's Folly just cost him and his Republican Party both houses of the U.S. Congress. Every commentator I've seen or read attributes it almost entirely to voters' anger at the Bush Administration's invention and management of the Iraq War.

This curious phenomenon is like teenage swastika vandalism of Plymouth Rock or synagogues, mosques and Jewish cemeteries. Or the desecration of military memorials and cemeteries.

American conservatives widely and commonly view Wikipedia as leaning politically liberal or lefty. My perception is that Wikipedia (when not being vandalized) tries obsessively to be scrupulously and painfully accurate and factual. This would tend to piss off anyone who needs to make Reality behave in some different direction. Fox News relentlessly makes Reality behave in a very different direction from factual accuracy in a way conservatives find far more comforting and pleasant. On Fox News, we're winning the War in Iraq, we're winning the War on Terrorism, we're winning the War in Afghanistan. On Fox, Victory's just around the corner, the boys and girls will be home in time for Christmas.

What a Déjà Vu enema that is for Old Veteran Bob.

Bush's Folly now has the added distinction of disturbing the rest, peace and dignity of America's Vietnam war dead. All they are is dead this Veterans Day, and the living can't leave them alone. With mouse and trackball, in the privacy of their computers, the living urinate on the graves and on the memories of our Vietnam war dead; no need to wait for nightfall.

Leave A Comment. Or don't. Whatever. Be as pissed off or as controversial as you want. But no Anonymous Driveby Comments. Sign your work with a link that indicates who the fuck you are. Anonymous Driveby Comments will be removed instantly. Trespassers will be violated.

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World War I ended in 1918, the Great Worldwide Economic Depression began with the Stock Market Crash in October 1929. This song became incredibly famous in 1932. Herbert Hoover was president, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt defeated him in 1932 and was inaugurated in 1933 (and ended alcohol Prohibition, as he'd promised).

Two or three generations, woman, man, boy, girl, grandma, grandpa know it or knew it intimately. The tune is a bit maudlin, certainly very sad, mostly in the minor key. And yet you don't mind hearing it again when it comes on the radio. Most people who lived through the Depression just called it "the song." Every singer, good or bad, covered this song. Instrumental snatches of it appear frequently in American movies, to remind the audience's hearts of the Depression, and a lengthy kind of shared community unhappiness and misery much harsher than Bad Romance.

cf. "Hard Times Come Again No More" by Stephen Foster
and "Somebody's Darling"

Brother,
Can You Spare a Dime?

lyrics: E.Y. "Yip" Harburg
music: Jay Gorney

Lyrics as recorded by Bing Crosby.

If I can find this Manfred Helfert guy, he had a dead link to a Real Audio sound file. I'll let you know.

Intro:

They used to tell me I was building a dream
And so I followed the mob
When there was earth to plow or guns to bear
I was always there, right on the job

They used to tell me I was building a dream
With peace and glory ahead --
Why should I be standing in line
Just waiting for bread?

Verses:

Once I built a railroad, made it run
Made it race against time
Once I built a railroad, now it's done --
Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once I built a tower to the sun
brick and rivet and lime
Once I built a tower, now it's done --
Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee, we looked swell
Full of that Yankee Doodle-de-dum
Half a million boots went slogging through hell
And I was the kid with the drum --

Say, don't you remember? They called me Al
It was Al all the time
Why don't you remember? I'm your pal --
Buddy, can you spare a dime?

Nobody's had a US or RA serial number since around 1971 when they started using Social Security Numbers. I had one of the last Army serial numbers. RA meant you enlisted for 3 years or longer. US meant you were drafted and only owed 2 years of active duty.

This is a pretty close facsimile of my dog tags which I still have around here somewhere -- with the pewter peace symbol I bought at a head shop. It was an Army crime to wear crap like this under your uniform, but nobody ever demanded I unbutton my blouse so they could check. And they would have had to build a very big military prison (stockade) to keep all the draftees who were wearing peace signs and other funky head shop crap around their necks.

Oh the Peace Sign ... during the Vietnam War, warhawks and True American Patriots and right-wing Kommie-hating psychopaths called it "the footprint of the American chicken." Soldiers were encouraged to call the Vietnamese "dinks" and "gooks" and "slopes."

I served from 22 March 1969 to 21 March 1971, was honorably discharged, and won 3 medals:

* the medal they give you for showing up

* the medal they give you for staying out of serious trouble and not getting drunk too often in public or ever getting caught with dope. I was never caught with dope.

* an important Army medal for very fast and very accurate typing in the Headquarters building

I also received a very nice letter from my Commander-in-Chief, Richard M. Nixon, thanking me for my patriotic service. Of course it's a machine signature. He had enough troubles around then, he didn't also need writer's cramp or arthritis or repetitive motion syndrome.

I loved the Senate Watergate Hearings, and his Impeachment hearings before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives.

Government has one obligation which, if it fucks up everything else, it must give the American People: To entertain. That was a very entertaining couple of years. Lots of rich and powerful Republicans, and lots of young Republican toady suckups who would do anything to get rich and powerful, went to minimum-security federal prisons. The former Attorney General, a very wealthy and powerful white man, went to federal prison. I wonder how many draft refusers he met inside.

I had the same job Al Gore had, enlisted Army journalist -- Information Specialist, 71Q20, and then when I got a little rank, 71Q40. I told whatever lies I was told to tell for a couple of primitive base publications. And took photos with a huge old Speed Graphic camera.

They gave me orders to go to Vietnam, but the orders were fucked up, so I had to serve my last year on the beach of the Gulf of Mexico in South Texas. I had a big-ass Triumph motorcycle. Except for the fact that you could get orders for Vietnam any day and then get shot in the head or blown up in the genitals, that last year was pretty fucking pleasant, as Army time goes.

It was a very fucked-up stupid loser war that went on for a very long time and killed about 52,000 (that's wrong; see red text above) American soldiers, sailors, marines, and I guess a few Air Force people and even the occasional extremely unlucky Coast Guard person. Yes, a considerable number of women in uniform got dead from the Vietnam War.

We had to Stay The Course. America couldn't Cut and Run. We were the most powerful military force on Earth. The enemy wore pajamas, had no tanks or airplanes or boats to speak of, and rode bicycles from battle to battle. It was unimaginable that little short non-Christian Asian Marxist people could kick the shit out of our military and eventually make us run away. They never fought us man-to-man where we could see them like Americans, they were sneaky and boobytrapped the jungle and hid in holes they dug in the ground, and they didn't believe in God or go to church.

Today Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld finally got fired. He really did a fine job with the Iraq War.

During the Hot Parts of the interminable Vietnam War, the Secretaries of Defense were Robert McNamara, Clark Clifford, Melvin Laird, Elliot Richardson and James Schlesinger. These guys could fuck up a wet dream, too. The big general in charge of the war was William Westmoreland. Our big generals in Iraq are equally talented and successful.

Nixon and Kissinger held out for Peace with Honor.

Does any of this sound in the least familiar? I am having *such* a Déjà Vu thing right now. It just REMINDS me of Something ...

Anyway, if you love Bob, send me something for Veterans Day. Use your imagination.

If you REALLY love Bob, stop this fucking Iraq War for me for Veterans Day, bring everybody home immediately, and let the local Asian people sort out the post-colonial 8th Crusade psycho depleted Uranium mess we've made. Stop shooting and bombing these human beings, let them shoot and bomb each other and grow opium for awhile, and after we all go home, send them lots of our wealthy American money, and let them spend it the way they like.

In Australia and New Zealand it's Remembrance Day. Australian military vets got it particularly bad, you know, the usual, suicide, divorce, alcoholism, drug addiction, prison, weird cancers and cancer-like diseases, just like American vets and just like Russian vets from Afghanistan.

And tons of homelessness. In about 2 weeks it's my first night working at the emergency winter church alliance cot shelter. Or, as I like to call it on most nights: The Old Vets' Reunion.

Sincerity: ON

O Dear Lord please let there not be any vets from Iraq 2 there.

But they probably will be there. That motherfucking war has been running for a very long time now. Plenty of time for them to have been discharged and to find our shelter. I'll serve them a hot meal, now and then I'll have the privilege of cooking part of it.

Oh -- they weren't drafted. They all volunteered. So if they're homeless, it's not so bad, and somehow it's their own personal responsibility and bad choices they made. We don't owe them a fucking thing.

My town has a little federal Veterans Hospital (in the village we call Leeds). I've lived in this town for 25 years. Let me tell you how this fucking hospital treats my brother and sister vets, from all America's wars. Let me tell you how the Department of Veterans Affairs treats vets.

Let me tell you how the DVA is going to treat the vets of the War in Iraq and the War in Afghanistan. Oh yeah I can stand on a chair and see the next decades of how the Department of Veterans Affairs will treat Iraq and Afghanistan War vets verrrrrrrrrrrry crisply. What's Past Is Prologue.

Or Worse.

Very early in the morning we feed them a cold cereal and fruit breakfast with hot coffee, stuff some sandwiches into their pockets, and then send them out into the bitter cold all day, without warm clothes. The shelter re-opens the next night at 6 pm, and runs from Halloween to 1 May.

After that the guests are allowed to sleep under the stars.

The Title of this Post is the big slogan out on the front lawn of the entrance to the little Veterans Hospital in Leeds.

"To care for him who shall have
borne the battle and for his widow,
and his orphan."

It's from Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, in which he told the nation his plans for healing the pain, loss and suffering caused by the Civil War, which was finally blessedly ending.

If it's not, Leave A Comment. I like Comments from people who know Abraham Lincoln's speeches.

Lincoln was a veteran of the Black Hawk War. His Illinois townsmen elected him their captain, and they chased Sauk and Fox Indians for a year, but never caught or hurt or saw any.

One of Lincoln's combat generals, the German revolutionary and immigrant Carl Schurz, became Secretary of the Interior, and made the Army stop trying to kill and capture a desperate, tiny, starving band of Cheyenne who had escaped their reservation, and let them stay in their traditional Montana lands unmolested by the Army or the United States Government.

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When in Berlin, Germany, please visit the Anti-Kriegs Museum in the Wedding district. Then check out the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. Real Freedom and Courage and Human Dignity from everywhere on Earth the way real women, men, children, even soldiers cook it and make it happen, with little or no assistance from government officials or politicians.