No Small Talk
Machine guns. Artillery. Black clouds. Gray smoke. Napalm. Exhaustion on the face every soldier and Marine standing, sitting or laying down, cigarettes dangling from their dirty faces. The dead and wounded - theirs and ours. Protests - here and there. Monks on fire. It was all on television. Every day. They are sickening images because war is sickening, and it doesn’t matter whether you believe the war in Vietnam is a necessity, a criminal act or a horrible mistake. It doesn’t matter whether you understand any of it. Seeing what is happening there makes everyone sick and sad and angry. The word hero does not spill out of every broadcast. The faces of the network anchors and correspondents are not jovial and carefree before, during or after they show us the horrors of the day. There is no small talk.
That isn’t a problem today. Those who believe sacrificing members of their families on the altar of lies concocted by this administration and its surrogates - Republicans, Democrats and the nationalist press - don’t have to be confronted with the ugliness of their loved ones’ day to day, moment to moment reality. They don’t have to see or read or hear anything that conflicts with their opinion.
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