This video tells of the treatment of American soldiers during the Vietnam war, although it was never officially declared by congress... What were we fighting over? Communism? Then why are we so close to China? No matter the reason, the people involved were kids, 19 years old, younger than me, yet they fought, killed, wounded, were wounded, destroyed, and were destroyed. Why? Because their government owned their lives, as it technically still does. I watch this video, and I don't understand humanity. Not because of the images here, but the numbers, how many people died. Its horrifying. How could the politicians send these kids on over to die? Because they ceased to be humans and became numbers... They were x-amount of troops, with x-amount of acceptable casualties.
Another thing that will never sit well with me, is how these soldiers, merely instruments or a government were treated. The people who protested the war, they called these poor boys names, threw stuff at them. These people who had just went through hell, boys who had no free will except to life in swampy lands, get shot at, see their friends die, were now without a place where they belong. Its these types of past moments that make me mourn for humanity as a whole.
Who are we that we can't even love those that are supposedly in our own group. If we can't even love those around us, how can we love the rest of the world.
Then I start thinking, as I just received an email containing a picture of a 9 year old boy and his father weeks before he passed away due to cancer, and I cried. We are losing innocent people needlessly with fighting, we kill our men, women, and children as long as the rest of the world's. Then I think, not only are we spending lives, but money on these "objectives." What if we took that massive military budget and spent it on curing the ailments of our society, saving lives. Why is it that so often there is more emphasis on taking lives than on saving them.
Sometimes I am left with more questions than I had before.
May current dream: That the world will put more emphasis on saving lives, than on taking lives, making a profit, or on any other superficial venture.
If this comes true, then people will begin to see true peace, instead of just a lack of fighting (but even that would be an improvement.)
The answer? Love, if each person can love more than hate, the world can change. That is all it would take.
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