Vietnam vets not last one exploited

Friday, July 11, 2008Last updated July 14, 2008 11:41 a.m. PT

By EDWARD F. PALM
GUEST COLUMNIST
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

As a Vietnam veteran who struggled to get through college on the Vietnam-era GI bill, I am happy for today's young, and not so young, veterans who will be getting a much better educational opportunity than I got. But I do have to object to the rhetoric some of the proponents of the bill employed in securing its passage. If those now serving really do constitute a "new greatest generation," and those who saw us through World War II were the original "greatest generation," what does that make of us in the middle -- the baby boom generation that fought and/or protested the Vietnam War? A "new lost generation" perhaps?

In the words of the immortal Bard, "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon 'em." But Shakespeare didn't say anything about greatness skipping a generation, as it seems to have skipped mine.

Don't get me wrong: Personally, I am in awe at how much today's overtaxed troops have managed to endure. A bit of bad Winston Churchill comes to mind: Never have so many asked so much of so few. But, at the same time, I doubt that the current mood of adulation is really good for the country -- much less the troops, past or present.

First, as oppressors of any stripe can attest, one of the best ways to keep people down, paradoxically, is to place them up on a pedestal. Just as women were once deemed to be too good for the professions or the world of work -- they were reserved for the nobler calling of motherhood -- today's underclass has been elevated to the honor of fighting and dying out on the fringes of the empire. Their sacrifice supposedly makes them, and their cause, unassailable -- especially since the rest of us were merely assigned the guilt-inducing task of stimulating the economy by shopping.

Second, it is not at all certain that the cause for which we're asking so few to sacrifice so much is making us any safer. As with my war, our indifference to so-called collateral damage may prove to be self-defeating. The rap against us in Vietnam was that we made more Vietcong than we killed. Once again, we may be merely stiffening the enemy's resolve and ultimately helping him to recruit.

Third, while my generation may not have achieved "greatness" in the highly politicized sense popular today, I think we were "born great." Raised in relative prosperity and nurtured in the great myths associated with America's founding, we grew up believing that "truth, justice and the American way" was a redundant phrase. And when we woke up from that American dream to a nightmare war that seemed to repudiate all that America stood for, we questioned authority and we spoke out. Some members of our generation even acted out, protesting and dramatizing their opposition with acts of civil and military disobedience -- until the rest of the country recognized the insanity that we were seeing. If demanding the America we had been promised wasn't a kind of greatness, I don't know what is.

In all fairness, those of us who bore the brunt of enemy fire and friendly folly in Vietnam have long known that we were hardly the first generation to be lied to and exploited by self-deluded and cynical politicians. But, somehow, we thought we'd be the last. If we stopped speaking out and let it happen again, it is because we allowed ourselves to be "swift-boated" -- all of us, not just John Kerry. We have been made to feel ashamed of not winning -- much less protesting -- a war we never should have been asked to fight.

The sad truth of the matter is today's veterans, for all they have endured, have had "greatness thrust upon them" by an administration that has found it politically expedient to do so. The proof of that is how the sponsors of the new GI bill had to call the administration's bluff. Many of the people who had been quick to lionize today's troops were strangely reluctant to put taxpayer money where their mouths had been, citing worries about eroding retention in the military. If that doesn't speak volumes about how the administration really views the troops, I don't know what does.

Edward F. Palm served in Vietnam as an enlisted Marine. He is now the dean of social sciences and humanities at Olympic College in Bremerton.

Justice Anthony Scalia on Waterboarding

I was appalled to catch an NPR report on Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia's recent justification of waterboarding ("All Things Considered," February 12, 2008). Justice Scalia's position is that, while the Constitution expressly forbids "cruel and unusual punishment," waterboarding conducted in the course of an interrogation is not "punishment"--hence, it is "Constitutional." He went on to justify his position with reference to the worst-case scenario: In order to save countless lives, we may have to do whatever it takes to get a terrorist to reveal where the bomb is hidden.
Scalia's position reminds me of what a friend's mother used to say about certain of life's unavoidable, unpleasant realities: "Everyone knows that, but you don't say it!" Scalia's example represents demagoguery at its worst--invoking the "sum of all fears" to make his point. But what about lesser, more ambiguous situations in which the involvement of the suspect is unclear or uncertain? Would Scalia empower interrogators to set aside the presumption of innocence? I believe that is a slippery slope this country cannot afford to approach. --Edward Palm

Les is More: A Don't Ask, Don't Tell Story

[The following appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on 17 Dec. 2007.]

"Lighten up on 'don't ask, don't tell"

EDWARD F. PALM
GUEST COLUMNIST

Call me "Les."

My real name is "Ed," but I was always Les to the commanding general of the 1st Marine Division when I was a major serving on his staff in the late '80s.

The recent news reports about 28 retired admirals and generals calling for an end to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy have led me to reflect on how I came to be Les. Personally, I think it is long past time for the Department of Defense to lighten up on this issue, as I learned to do in the 1st Marine Division.

The entire time I was on active duty as a Marine officer, there was only other officer named Palm, and he was always at least three ranks ahead of me. His name is Les Palm.

Now, the Marine Corps, compared with the other services, is a small place. Senior officers tend to know one another -- by reputation, if not personally. Les Palm enjoyed a superb reputation throughout the Corps. Ed Palm -- "not so much." This was mainly because of my own career choice. As an enlisted man, I had served in Vietnam as a rifleman and patrol leader with the Combined Action Program. But later in life, as an officer, I became an "adjutant," a professional administrator.

The general clearly had me confused with Les Palm. Whenever I would brief him, he would close the briefing with "Thank you, Les." Or, when I would encounter him in the hall or in the club, he would say "Hi, Les."

For the most part, I was content to be "Les." But one day I did ask the division adjutant, an ironic young captain, if he thought I should set the general straight.

"Hell no, sir!" my young friend replied. "Les Palm is a heterosexual -- an artillery officer. You're just an adjutant," he reminded me.

"The confusion can only do you good!"

I retired -- still a major -- in 1993 and went on to an academic career. Les Palm would go on to become a lieutenant general. We never actually met. But my young friend was right; the confusion did do me a lot of good. It prompted me to think seriously about whether having gays serving openly would really be a detriment to good order and discipline.

Later, in interviewing for academic jobs, when people would ask me where I stood on the gay ban, I knew just what to say. I told them that I had seen far more boy-girl problems than problems caused by gay Marines.

I told them that, gay or straight, we have an obligation to keep our sex lives private and separate from our professional lives. And I told them that, should the Department of Defense change the policy and allow gays to serve openly, not only would we adjust but we would lead the way, just as the Armed Forces had done with racial integration in the '50s.

I still believe that. I also still wonder if anyone anywhere has ever confused Les Palm with Ed Palm the adjutant turned academic.

Edward F. Palm is dean of social sciences and humanities at Olympic College in Bremerton.
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