According to census data, roughly 10 percent or nearly 70,000 of Alaskans are veterans. This at a time when President Trump is expanding our military involvement in Afghanistan, our longest war, and upping the military budget by $54,000,000 to 650 billion dollars while cutting our health care and our children’s education funds. In addition, he is giving more freedom to our military commanders in exercising war by drones and special forces in Afghanistan and other parts of the world. Currently, Public Broadcasting Service is presenting “The Vietnam War”, a 10 part documentary film series by Lynne Novick and Ken Burns. Last night was the fifth part. Until this morning I had seen no mention of this significant documentary in our Alaska newspapers. This is surprising given the facts that about 58,000 Americans and nearly 3 million Asians died, countless numbers of wounded veterans came home, several trillions of our wealth was spent and several of our leaders lied about the success of our military efforts. I was reminded last night that even our M-16 weapons jammed frequently while the AK-47s of the Viet Cong worked well in the wet, dirty conditions.
Veterans for Peace is conducting the Vietnam Full Disclosure Project entitled The Truth About America’s War in Vietnam. Included in their news publication they point out President Obama in 2012 began a 13-year plan to commemorate the Vietnam War and the Department of Defense emphasized just a portion of the war effort that did not tell the whole story. The VFP is encouraging us to reflect on the lessons we learned and the lessons we have not learned. In addition, they raise the question, is the Novick-Burn documentary an honest appraisal or new obfuscation? In my opinion, we Alaskans deserve to know the truth and have confidence in our Democracy and leaders. To do so we need to be made privy to the information in the Novick-Burn’s documentary and the efforts of Veterans for Peace along with other peace-promoting groups. I feel we need to read this information in our Alaska newspapers. There are elections in our future and we need to know the truth about candidates to make our Democracy work for the well-being of all Americans.
Veteran Hugh R. Hays,
Soldotna