Some years ago on Veterans Day I was filling up my car at a gas station in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I went inside the store to pay for the fill up and the young man behind the counter asked me if I was a veteran. I told him that I was and he applied a Veterans Day discount to my purchase, for which I was very grateful. He asked me when I had served and I told him “during the Vietnam War”. Incredulously, he had a befuddled look on his face which told me that he was not aware of the war. I then took the liberty of giving him a twenty second synopsis of what the war was about, finishing with “and there were about 58,000 Americans killed over there”. To which he replied:
“Yeah, whatever.”
This apparent dismissiveness bothered me terribly and still haunts me to this very day. To think that the loss of that many human lives over the years 1961-1975 should be disrespected is, in my opinion, unconscionable.
In a related matter I read a headline in the newspaper a few days ago that, during the month of December, 2020, there have been over 63,000 COVID19 deaths in our country, thus exceeding the total U. S. Vietnam War deaths.
The unspoken response from many of our elected politicians:
“Yeah, whatever.”
Readers, take care and stay healthy.
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