Right now the news is filled with people who will someday become veterans like Lieutenant Calley of Mai Lai fame. They tortured in the name of freedom, of democracy maybe, of truth, or even God.
Or maybe they were just having fun. Now when they are discharged and officially become veterans, I will shed some tears for them, for the Karma they have put on their souls and the danger they have put us all in as retribution is sought in the name of their victims.
I once asked the guard in the rotunda of the Russian Veterans Monument in Berlin if there was anywhere a monument to the fallen German soldiers who fought the Russians and Americans. "No", he answered, "they were fighting for the wrong reason."
My tears go out to those of all countries who fought for the wrong reason and for the flags which they dishonored.
Shuttering anguish is what I feel for the leaders who knowingly sent them to kill (and die, though dying is less tragic than wrongly killing) for a wrong cause.
Actually, tears of joy come to my eyes quite easily when I see the newsreel of Mohammed Ali proudly saying that he would not participate in an unjust war against the Vietnamese. History will show that Ali is a veteran of that war as much as those who participated in the violence of genocidal terrorism. Ali had the courage to stand up for an honest America.
Very Sincerely on Memorial Day!
Your American Veteran
Jay Janson, who was during eight years, Assistant Conductor of the Vietnam Symphony Orchestra in Hanoi and on tour playing all the Brahms symphonies, and Beethoven, Prokovieff, Shostakovitch, Haydn, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, dozens of Overtures and concertos including both Chopin concertos with the only Asian winner of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, Dan Tai-son, who practiced for it in a Hanoi bomb shelter. The orchestra was founded by Ho Chi Minh, and it plays most of its concerts in the Opera House, a diminutive copy of the Paris Opera. In 1945, our ally Ho, from a balcony overlooking the large square and flanked by an American Major and a British Colonel, declared Vietnam independent. (By the way the little hotel, where I stayed in the 90s, lay just across from our American Embassy in Hanoi, and the Ambassador was just so happy to be arranging business contracts with the same government our Veterans died trying to defeat, by killing as many of their patriot soldiers and volunteers as possible.) Everyone in the orchestra lost family, "killed by the Americans", they would mention simply, with Buddhist un-accusing acceptance.
Again, happy Memorial Day, and lets dedicate it to contemplating investigating wars in memory of those who died in them. Life is too beautiful and brief to kill it off early, and stop the music.
PPS On a positive and humane Memorial suggestion:
Nothing could be better to honor our fellow veterans' having given their lives, than to turn this nation around into morality and honesty, and forgoing pompous and ridiculous attempts to praise ourselves indiscriminately, announce our intention to arrange compensation to Vietnam War survivors of our now admitted 'MISTAKE'!
That would impress the whole world, and gain the next president some moral high ground for leadership of this nation.
The current compensation 'sympathy payment' for wrongful death of innocent Iraqis who file complaints with the US led Coalition Government is about US $6,000, according to a report published in the Christian Science Monitor in March, 2006.
Put ourselves in their shoes. The shoes of Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, Iraqi and Afghan bereaved families. Could we even imagine such bombings upon US towns and countryside? We can improve the whole world and ourselves with such imagination.
Or maybe they were just having fun. Now when they are discharged and officially become veterans, I will shed some tears for them, for the Karma they have put on their souls and the danger they have put us all in as retribution is sought in the name of their victims.
I once asked the guard in the rotunda of the Russian Veterans Monument in Berlin if there was anywhere a monument to the fallen German soldiers who fought the Russians and Americans. "No", he answered, "they were fighting for the wrong reason."
My tears go out to those of all countries who fought for the wrong reason and for the flags which they dishonored.
Actually, tears of joy come to my eyes quite easily when I see the newsreel of Mohammed Ali proudly saying that he would not participate in an unjust war against the Vietnamese. History will show that Ali is a veteran of that war as much as those who participated in the violence of genocidal terrorism. Ali had the courage to stand up for an honest America.
Very Sincerely on Memorial Day!
Your American Veteran
Jay Janson, who was during eight years, Assistant Conductor of the Vietnam Symphony Orchestra in Hanoi and on tour playing all the Brahms symphonies, and Beethoven, Prokovieff, Shostakovitch, Haydn, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, dozens of Overtures and concertos including both Chopin concertos with the only Asian winner of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, Dan Tai-son, who practiced for it in a Hanoi bomb shelter. The orchestra was founded by Ho Chi Minh, and it plays most of its concerts in the Opera House, a diminutive copy of the Paris Opera. In 1945, our ally Ho, from a balcony overlooking the large square and flanked by an American Major and a British Colonel, declared Vietnam independent. (By the way the little hotel, where I stayed in the 90s, lay just across from our American Embassy in Hanoi, and the Ambassador was just so happy to be arranging business contracts with the same government our Veterans died trying to defeat, by killing as many of their patriot soldiers and volunteers as possible.) Everyone in the orchestra lost family, "killed by the Americans", they would mention simply, with Buddhist un-accusing acceptance.
Again, happy Memorial Day, and lets dedicate it to contemplating investigating wars in memory of those who died in them. Life is too beautiful and brief to kill it off early, and stop the music.
PPS On a positive and humane Memorial suggestion:
Nothing could be better to honor our fellow veterans' having given their lives, than to turn this nation around into morality and honesty, and forgoing pompous and ridiculous attempts to praise ourselves indiscriminately, announce our intention to arrange compensation to Vietnam War survivors of our now admitted 'MISTAKE'!
That would impress the whole world, and gain the next president some moral high ground for leadership of this nation.
The current compensation 'sympathy payment' for wrongful death of innocent Iraqis who file complaints with the US led Coalition Government is about US $6,000, according to a report published in the Christian Science Monitor in March, 2006.
Put ourselves in their shoes. The shoes of Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, Iraqi and Afghan bereaved families. Could we even imagine such bombings upon US towns and countryside? We can improve the whole world and ourselves with such imagination.
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