I have made a strong commitment to a New Years resolution that may have resonance with many others about the globe. Basically, the commitment is to refuse to use the word ‘fight’. There is just so much of the use of the word. The best I can tell it is a deleterious expression no matter if in the English language it is considered a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb or any other hanging participle or dangling modifier.
“Fight” is a word one hears in the day to day chatter from one human to another, or groups of humans to another group of others. This personal resolution for 2022 is to take that word and substitute a different word, by use of an antonym, which could be any of the following words:
accord
agreement
calm
concord
friendliness
friendship
harmony
kindness
peace
truce
Has the species been hardwired since the time of the first ‘fight’ of Brothers, ending in the death of one of them, has a curse of punishment been placed on humankind?
Does one have to be a soldier to use the term? Of course not, be it a sibling, be it a spouse, be it a team, be it a state, be it a country, be it an organization pitted against another, be it a political ideology ranting against a separate policy, all consumed with a common thread that engages in some version of a conflict.
Let’s look at a few wars, just a few wars, not all the wars in history, or we never get through to this zoetic message. What do you say if we just start with those words, beginning my lifetime, with the Korean conflict, U.S. troops, ‘fight’ to protect South Korea?
1950-1953 Korean War
It wasn’t even called a war, but it certainly was a ‘fight’ wince people lost their lives on both sides. Nothing was gained. There remains still a miserable situation to the two countries and a system with a DMZ (demilitarized zone) separating the two with a subhuman dictator to the north, for at least seventy years, and a smart inventive people to the south. The Korean War is the first armed conflict in the global struggle between democracy and communism, known to all as the “Cold War”.
1961 Cuba
The U.S. Armed Forces fail in Bay of Pigs invasion, along with Cuban exiles trying to overthrow the Fidel Castro's communist regime in a Caribbean country. Did anyone try diplomatic channels? I as an eight year old, am able to see glimpses of the news of the day on a black and white screen with an antenna strung to a tiny television, or listening on a transistor radio of the big fury of a young president commanding an unforgettable flop of a poorly planned war strategy.
1965 Dominican Republic
U.S. president Lyndon Johnson sends American armed services to squelch a leftist uprising; fearing another Caribbean Republic may follow in the footsteps of Cuba and turning communist.
1961-1973 Vietnam War
The United States joins the war, sided with South Vietnam in 1961, against North Vietnam who had invaded their southern sister country to be able meld into one communist system. Fifteen years later the North succeeded in the authoritarian mission. The original invasion began in 1955 into South Vietnam.
You do know the French where they’re doing the same silliness before President Kennedy sent the Americans in 1961, correct? And what was President Lyndon Johnson doing sending a half million souls to a place they knew nothing about with some concocted theory of communism over running the world from a tiny little south Asian country?
In the earlier years of the mid 1960’s our family lived close to two separate Air Force bases in Europe, in France and Italy. In the latter ‘66 to ‘69 era, we were on an airbase at Clinton Sherman Air Force Base, which had a population of a mini city, attached to the civilian hamlet of Burns Flat, Oklahoma. In the early 60s I would watch fighter jets, typically F-101 Voodoos and F-104 Starfighters, ride the skys as they were training for sortie runs while whisking furiously fast across the French and Italian Landscapes.
My brother and I would mimic what we knew of Special Forces with our own kid version of a secret ’Green Beret’ reconnaissance unit. Our unit had type written color dotted a paper files that were to be destroyed if captured. Obviously we never were as a few remnant documents remain in the archives prove. We, so young, however we’re training ourselves to be part of the massive US of A military industrial complex that continues to stick it to the world today. Our own military academy in the making you are allowed to ‘imagine’.
As teens we were blessed with rugged sturdy American made bicycles that would take us miles from home without any parental oversight, at anytime. For me, the Huffy bike was my delivery work horse to transport the Oklahoma City Daily and Sunday Times newspapers straddled above the rear wheel. Sunday delivery required special drop offs as the papers would not all fit in one run which was taken to the other side of the airbase residential sector, full of officers and their families, as early as 5:00 AM. each morning.
Sometimes we would travel out to the golf course to collect golfballs from the big pond of water. Other times, we just rode to the airbase teen center, parked our bikes, then entered, no bike locks needed. On an occasion I may have taken off the airbase to go to school, but for some reason I don’t think that happened much.
Upon reentering the airbase from school which was a “Strategic Air Command” (SAC) outpost, a huge signed welcomed one entering through the gated passage which read “Peace through Strength.” Pictured along side those words was an image of a B-52 bomber carrying it’s a load of destruction to unsuspecting targets, falling from 6 miles high in the sky to kill and maim for the cause of maintaining the ‘peace’. In my mind at some point in time these words struck a discord with a notion of illogical Truth not conducive to human harmony.
The message and operational results are than two millennia old, and is outdated and any person, organization or entity ie. dark forces, trying to pull the wool over others eyes, should be outlawed globally.
I grew to really admire the aircraft that were developed to fly the sky sinse the first day of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk for 12 seconds in North Carolina. The machines, the engines, the force, the speed, the distance claimed traveled everywhere, exceeded engineering excellence. The one main flaw in the military system is that these devices contributed without question to the loss of life whether innocent or guilty. In Clinton Sherman two gigantic planes were stationed there on the tarmac. One was the B-52 Bomber with its eight engines and the other was the KC-135 Air Refueler.
The runway was over 2 1/2 miles long. I often rode my bicycle to the end north end of the runway a couple miles from home on Chickasaw Trail. From this vantage, outside the barbed wire perimeter fence, I positioned myself directly underneath the flight path to watch both kinds of jets takeoff and land with their extremely loud after effects. It was a sight to behold, a sound loud enough to make a dead heart pump again.
Very late in the 60s the same aircraft headed to Southeast Asia flying half around the globe, with payloads, and refueling in air to the small Pacific island of Guam. The bombers targets were in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, dropping enormous amounts of ordinance onto enemy forces. The airmen would come back after a six month deployment, with large amounts of illegal payloads of illicit drugs, scored in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Distributed throughout the United States from the middle of the country was a formidable challenge to military life and its leadership. It led to an all voluntary armed service corp. So much for the slogan ‘peace through strength’, eh?
More War: 1982 Lebanon
U.S. troops form part of a multinational peacekeeping force to help the fragile Lebanese government maintain power in the politically volatile country. In 1983, 241 U.S. Marines and 60 French soldiers were killed by a truck bomb.
More War: 1983 Grenada
U.S. President Ronald Reagan invaded the Caribbean island nation of Grenada to o rid its socialist government, who had close ties with Cuba.
More War: 1989 Panama
U.S. President George H. W. Bush invaded Panama to overthrow Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.
More War: 1991 Gulf War (Kuwait and Iraq)
The guy fighting the war goes to Iraq because Iraq invades Kuwait. The Gulf War begins and ends quickly when a U.S.- led multinational force invades Kuwait, uncovering dictator Saddam Hussein.m
My Christian coworkers at the time of this war advised me I should follow the dictates of the US president and be pro war. I cannot in good conscience do this. I label myself then, and now, a ‘cosmic citizen’ divorced from the preoccupation of killing other humans for power and possession, greed and oil, and what other miserable commodity some tricksters think is so precious they oppress the oppressed (poor) to work their wars, for their own non-altruistic gains.
More War: 1993 Somalia
A U.S.-led multinational force attempts to restore order to war-torn Somalia.
More War: 1994 Haiti
Haiti's President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is ousted in a coup in 1991, a U.S. invades to restore him to power.
More War: 1994-1995 Bosnia
The U.S. launches air strikes on Bosnia with airplanes flown from Aviano AFB.
More War: 1999 Kosovo
Yugoslavia's province of Kosovo breaks out in war in the spring of 1999. A U.S.- led NATO force intervenes with air strikes again from sorties flown from Aviano AFB.
More War: 2001-2021 Afghanistan
I think it’s cruel minded men having no understanding of the purpose of why we inhabit earth, why we breathe, or what is our real ‘mission’ when we are born helpless and crying from our mother’s wombs?
More War: 2003-2010 Iraq War
Like a father like son, only worse the as the US president abdicates to his VP who could have played Anthony Hopkins role in the 1991 horror movie “Silence of the Lambs”. Sinful men with sinful hearts leading the innocent to IED’s, death and suicides.
More War: 2011 Libya
More War: 2017-Present Syria
More War: 2021 January 6th insurrection
No words can express the corruption sent to injure men’s hearts, to destroy their own laws.
Awake or asleep the US of A has been involved in war the last seven decades, however, many other wars and genocide have occurred on the same planet at the same time, either by mis-guided minds or frozen hearts. I shun the patriarchy of fear and disaster.
“Imagine” the fifty year old song by John Lennon encourages everyone to
“Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one”
So…
I recently received this passage contained with a paragraph that struck me as profound:
We are constantly being manipulated into judging everyone. Not only by our gender, skin color, and faith, but by our education level, profession, diet, whom we vote for, and on and on. When we unconsciously categorize our fellow humans, regardless of our bad or good intentions, we practice division. Each act of judgment erodes our ability to unite, listen, and heal, and they build a narrative of US vs.THEM. 1
Cooperation is more appealing than combativeness and competitiveness. If your fate has led to a “fight”, it is one of your own choice. The extraneous conditions may not have been your decision, knowingly or unknowingly, however, we have become pawns of the turmoil.
A zoetic message beginning in 2022, this week, is a personal resolution to walk away from the word ‘fight’ on every occasion, and then replacing the word ‘peace’ with it. I will NOT voice my displeasure with the antics of gun toting, napalm droppers, atom bomb makers, shooting snipers, nor fighters of any denomination, age group or politics, with wasted words, to the lot that does not hear, or abide. Thus, I will be away, as far away from a world compelled by violent acts using weapons and words of destruction against other humans.
Do not visit our sanctuary without repentance first, as we do not want to reap what you sow, and you know who ‘you’ be. Peace.
Email receive from Stephen Martineau friendsforever@mg2.lglcrm.net www.ff.international/report
Loved the memories of Clinton Sherman AFB ,my Dad was a scheduler of the B 52 . I am not a believer or for war ever , but I look back now and I am very proud of the men and women who fought to keep us free . I too in the new year revolve not to judge others and I resolve to listen to others views with an open mind . Something I like to think I have always done . So here is to a Peaceful New Year 2022