Updated Tuesday, July 26, 2005

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Look in Your Heart!!!

A story is told about a soldier who was finally coming
home after having fought in Vietnam. He called his
parents from San Francisco. "Mom and Dad, I'm coming
home, but I've a favor to ask. I have a friend I'd like
to bring home with me."

"Sure," they replied, "we'd love to meet him."

"There's something you should know." the son continued,
"he was hurt pretty badly in the fighting. He stepped on
a land mine and lost an arm and a leg. He has nowhere
else to go, and I want him to come live with us."

"I'm sorry to hear that, son. Maybe we can help him find
somewhere to live."

"No, Mom and Dad, I want him to live with us."

"Son," said the father, "you don't know what you're asking.
Someone with such a handicap would be a terrible burden on
us. We have our own lives to live, and we can't let something
like this interfere with our lives. I think you should just
come home and forget about this guy. He'll find a way to live
on his own."

At that point, the son hung up the phone. The parents heard
nothing more from him.

A few days later, however, they received a call from the San
Francisco police. Their son had died after falling from a
building, they were told. The police believed it was suicide.

The grief-stricken parents flew to San Francisco and were
taken to the city morgue to identify the body of their son.

They recognized him, but to their horror they also discovered
something they didn't know, their son had only one arm and
one leg.


The parents in this story are like many of us. We find it
easy to love those who are good-looking or fun to have
around, but we don't like people who inconvenience us
or make us feel uncomfortable. We would rather stay
away from people who aren't as healthy, beautiful, or
smart as we are.

Thankfully, there's someone who won't treat us that way.
Someone who loves us with an unconditional love that
welcomes us into the forever family, regardless of how
messed up we are.

Tonight, before you tuck yourself in for the night, say a
little prayer that God will give you the strength you need
to accept people as they are, not as you think they should
be, and to help us all be more understanding of those who
are different from us!!!

Take time to do a search of your heart.

author unknown

The tranquil beauty of Vietnam was disturbed by warfare for decade upon decade.

Again our youth responded to their nation's call; right or wrong.

We the people can call the shots, but most time we don't. Instead we allow career bureaucrats and professional politicians to establish our domestic and foreign policies. These politicians, in turn, are controlled by the business interests that finance their campaigns. Federally imposed campaign limits is the nightmare of the special interest groups.

The lesson not learned is that all the might of the U.S. military could not prevail against the will of the Vietnamese people. Because they look different, practice different religious belief, and their culture is not ours it was assumed that they too would embrace Coca Cola and McDonald's fries. What U.S. arrogance never allows for is that all people do not have to immolate to be afforded the same right of passage.

 
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Note from the Midnight D.J.: I volunteered to go to Vietnam. My eagerness can be attributed to youth. I was nineteen, and untested. It's a man thang. In reflection it makes no sense except if you are nineteen. However, let me quickly add for those who maybe nineteen, once you are presented with hostile fire you quickly realize the fatality associated with war. The dead don't get up. Where once there was a head there will never be a head again. Our legs can't grow back. Then comes the harder lesson. Why are you fighting? To quote Muhammad Ali, "No Vietnamese has ever called me nigger." The same can't be said for members of the U.S. Congress, City Council, or policemen who find bloody gloves on ground free of blood.

Our mission may have honestly been liberty, but what we brought was death and destruction. The undeclared war spanned more years than the American Revolution  and thousands of our young were left behind.

Pvt. Robert Jenkins 

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