There is lots of money in war but no money in peace.

It is especially gratifying when conducting numerous sorties for peace over the years to talk with fellow war veterans who also have become devout advocates for peace. My favorite conversation before the Cleveland Browns-Cincinnati Bengals game on October 21st outside Huntington Bank Field was with a young man named Justin, an Afghanistan war veteran, who greatly appreciated my service and presence. I said, “Wasn’t my idea. I got drafted”. He said he was “young and dumb and enlisted.”  He is an army veteran who received artillery training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, which for many years was also the site of the army’s artillery OCS (Officer Candidate School.)  Justin told me he enlisted after a good friend of his was killed in Iraq.  I’m guessing Justin wanted to take his buddy’s place in Iraq and he was very angry that he was deployed to Afghanistan instead.  He said, “I wanted to go to Iraq!! “I was part of the 30,000-troop deployment to Afghanistan that Obama ordered,” said Justin.  I said, “I remember that, and two weeks later Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.” When I mentioned that irony, Justin let loose with a string of harsh profanities for Obama for having the nerve to accept the peace prize while continuing George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.    I said to Justin, and others I spoke with who are veterans, “There is lots of money in war but no money in peace.  War exists because of fear mongering, war-mongering politicians and their war profiteering bed partners, commonly known as defense contractors.” I said, “I lucked out in Vietnam. The only blood I saw was my own if I nicked myself shaving. But I lost a lieutenant in the Tet Offensive three days after his 23rd birthday. His whole life ahead of him blown away. We were sent to Vietnam to kill communists and now, Vietnam, a communist country, is our ally against China. All those lives wasted, not to mention hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese men, women and children blown to bloody bits and burned to death by our weapons of mass destruction.”  I said, “We don’t have boots on the ground in those wars, but the war profiteers are still making out, selling weapons to Ukraine and Israel.”          

I had a pleasant conversation with a non-veteran who appreciated my message. He had to use a cane to get around as a result of a horrific head-on car accident six years ago in Richmond, Indiana that put him in the hospital for a year-and-a-half. He said among his injuries was brain damage, but I couldn’t tell because he was articulate. He said he does have problems with short-term memory. I told him some people don’t like me in uniform carrying a peace flag, but they respect the uniform and have not attacked me physically. He said, “If anyone did, other people would jump him and restrain him.” Someone, of course, would call 911 if I was assaulted. I hope. 

A couple of very sweet little old ladies–well, okay, they likely were about my age–are Trump supporters and tried to find out if I was similarly disposed.  I deftly and politely parried their interest, saying, “What I like about Trump is he didn’t start any war during his time in office. And he wanted us to get out of Afghanistan, although Biden finally did so, despite it being a messy exit.”          

One young man who appreciated my military service said that because of me, he was able to enjoy what he has.           I disabused him of such a notion, giving him a brief history lesson, saying, “Neither the Viet Cong nor North Vietnamese Army had any interest in taking away our freedoms or way of life.”  He had no response, but I gave him something to think about.  I handed out several business cards to like-minded people that promote the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation which wants to build a U.S. Peace Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C. The cards have my name and indicate I am a Vietnam veteran and Ohio coordinator for the foundation.             

One woman came up to me with another woman and said, “I hope you didn’t mind my husband talking with you.” (He was the car accident victim.) I said, “No, I enjoyed talking with him.”  I gave her one of my cards and started to hand a card to the other woman, who was her sister. One man walking by pointed to his red baseball cap that did not say Make America Great Again but instead indicated he is a Navy veteran.  I said, “We were on the same team, but played different positions.”  To a man in a wheelchair who was “all in” with my peace initiative I said, “War is the most insane invention of man.”