So Many Wars – So Little Learned
by Larry Winters • New Paltz, NY

“The wars we have fought since Vietnam, the ones we still fight today, suggest that we have not yet learned from our mistakes,” Larry Winters said to a church congregation this past March. He then read from a piece he called the Khe Sanh Address, a reference to the Gettysburg Address, written for the occasion as follows:

The Khe Sanh Address

Abraham Lincoln went to the battlefield at Gettysburg to give his address. He stood on blood-soaked ground. No American that I know spoke at any of the battlefields in Vietnam. Unable to stand at this battlefield, I honor the men on both sides of the Khe Sanh siege for their giving of life and limb.

The Battle of Khe Sanh was conducted in northwestern Quang Tri Province, Republic of Vietnam, between 21 January and 8 April 1968. 730 Americans were killed in action, 2,642 wounded, 7 missing. The Vietnamese estimate of dead was over 9,000.

It has been forty-seven years since our fathers made war on Vietnam. Since that time they have involved us in the conflicts of the Bay of Pigs, Grenada, Panama, Persian Gulf, Bosnia, and currently in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. We justify the deaths and casualties of our people and those of the peoples of the foreign lands we have fought in by citing our constitutional belief that all men are created equal.

Standing now before numerous battle fields where so many have given life it is time for us to reexamine if we still believe all are created equal. Has this distant constitutional message of our forefathers faded beyond our hearing? Is it time to recalibrate our aggressive behaviors to better match our founding ideals? Have we lost our ability to truly value human life?

When we as a nation ask our men and women to offer their lives, all reasons for doing so should be hard wired directly to our forefather's ideals. If one life is given in vain, we have failed. Abraham Lincoln said, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Ask yourself honestly, where as a nation do we stand regarding these words today? Do we see our men and women soldiers as equals? Do we see our enemies as human beings equal to us? Have we honored our war dead and wounded as they should be? Can we make a privileged place among us for our returning veterans? Do we pay sincere tribute to their supreme sacrifices? Will we remember the forfeit of their souls?

Today we are here to search our hearts for the echoes of our ancestors who may have known the value of human life better than we do today. We are here to rekindle the flame of honor for our warriors. We are here to enliven our awareness of human life. We are here to remember the profound significances of when the life of a loved one is offered to protect us. We are here to find the courage to put aside our own material needs to consider the spiritual needs of the men and women who have gifted us with trust that we shall guide them into honorable endeavors that equal the value of their lives. And most of all we are here to look inward at our own souls and to ask for guidance in answering these questions concerning all human life.

The book The Making and Un-Making of a Marine can be ordered from www.makingandunmaking.com. Widely published poet, men’s group leader and psychotherapist, Larry Winters entered the United States Marine Corps after high school and served in Vietnam 1969-1970. Twenty-five years later, he returned to Vietnam with other healthcare professionals to study Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the Vietnamese people and to make peace with his past.