Although I was drafted and sent to Korea during that war, I do not consider myself a veteran of that conflict, but rather a victim.
I consider all military personnel involved in the Korean War a victim. I consider their families victims as well, for they had to suffer not knowing whether the ones they cherished would return home alive or their bodies returned in caskets.
They also had to suffer the possibilities that the ones who did return would be whole in body and in spirit. And of the innocent civilians in counties at war, well they are considered by Dick Cheney to be collateral damage. It has a better ring to it than humans murdered.
I consider each military serviceman and servicewoman of any war to be deceived by their governments, whether they acknowledge that truth or not. For they are not honestly serving their country, but the military industrial complex. The merchants of death wish for nothing but profits and power, casualties be damned. Or as former U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger put it, “military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy,” (from the book “Kiss the Boys Goodbye”). And Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize. This only proves how befouled present civilization has become.
This has been the story of wars since recorded history.
The ones who fought the battles were either forced to do so or were mercenaries. In recent history, it is propaganda and lies which motivate the innocents to become patriots. We are indoctrinated beginning in grammar school to become chauvinists. And those who refuse to become victims are shamed into enlisting or face the option of incarceration. Poverty also compels others to become victims.
Dictators know full-well how to manipulate the populace. Roman Caesars did so, as well as modern day Hitlers.
Current practitioners are proficient in the art of propaganda, happily assisted by the media such as FOX News, to name but one of many. The drums of war beat loud and the Constitution is defiled but the flags, which are the symbol of that Constitution, are flown everywhere and the populace embrace the flags, wear them even as garments, giving up their freedoms so munitions producers can reap massive fortunes provided by wars they unashamedly began.
All the ensuing carnage is done for power, glory and an unquenchable greed for money soaked in blood. And as the wars continue, these war profiteers, these creatures from hell, dance and drink and fornicate on the graves of the fallen.
So much for being a victim, not a veteran, of the Korean War, which was indeed hell.
John Kafkaloff
Lakeport
