The Toll of the Years

The Toll of The Years

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

John Donne

Riding the golf cart into the festival I was taken by how young the girl driving me seemed to appear. I asked if this was her first year working the festival and she replied that it was, to my surprise, her fourth. “So, that makes you about fourteen, then” I told her. She laughed at me and said that, no, she was twenty and a junior at UK. My memory flashed back to what I was doing at her age and I said that I was at UK for a while. I remarked that I was there when someone burned the ROTC building down but she was not even aware that that had happened.

Over a couple of days I have thought about that and remembered I am a couple of generations removed from her experience and that, while that was a seminal experience for me, it was nothing to her. Can you recall the exuberance with which you lived life at twenty years of age, how everything was so immediate and pressing and obvious? And now do you wonder how many of us have become so tolerant of cynicism and discrimination and the inequities of life? Do you recall the ambition, belief and determination of twenty that we would erase those negative influences of society from our society?

In 1970 UK had largely escaped the upheavals that many college campuses had endured over the causes of civil rights and the war in Vietnam. But that spring it was about to change. National Guardsmen called out to quell a demonstration at Kent State University in Ohio reacted violently to words and, perhaps, stones being hurled at them by opening fire on the unarmed crowd murdering four Kent State students and wounding several others. The rage over those shootings swept across college campuses and UK, normally a pretty quiet campus, was one of them. Demonstrations erupted and the National Guard was called out to ensure the safety and security of the public. For me it was a kind of “through the looking glass” moment as a student there. I lived off campus with a guy who was not a student but was seeking to avoid a trip to Vietnam in another time honored way by enlisting in the National Guard. So, during the evenings he would get in his uniform and me in mine and we would go off to the campus. Both of us stridently anti-war but going about it in different ways.

This points out a schism in the culture of that day just as there is one today. There are a few lessons that were taken away from the participation of the United States in the war in Vietnam. The junior officers took the lessons to heart and are now our generals. The politicians of today were either members of that youthful generation or are children of that generation. The military found out what it was like to try to fight a foreign war without the backing of the population and the politicians found out what it takes to make a foreign war acceptable at home.

The draft of young men into the military ceased in the Seventies and has not been revived. Until our adventure in Iraq we did not commit large numbers of military to any foreign engagement and really didn't plan to there. But the lessons learned were to not go to battle without overpowering force and to keep the American public as insulated as possible from the effects of war. Unfortunately, a political force arose that felt that the United States as the sole superpower could project its will around the world with shock and awe and make swift work of the primitive opponents. They were wrong. They also felt that if they could keep the horrible pictures out of the paper and not make the people pay the cost of pursuing war they could keep the public in check. They were right.

Someone said that if you do not know history you are doomed to repeat it. True words but it seems apparent you can know history and still choose to repeat it by not accurately assessing the risk. Such is the story of our times.

So when I read the comments of one reader that we had spent ourselves into a desperate state and the claims that it could be laid at the feet of emigrants and President Obama I wondered if that person had been keeping up the past twenty or so years. Balanced budgets all through the latter Nineties and then tax cuts, two wars and a Medicare D benefit enacted, all off the books and not paid for through the budgeting and taxing process. During Vietnam we had a surtax to pay for the war. During Iraq and Afghanistan we paid for them through Supplemental Appropriations and totally kept them from appearing in the budget. The tax cuts, which chiefly benefited the wealthy, not only allowed more wealth to accumulate in the top 1% of the population but also killed any chance of actually paying for the Medicare D benefit. Then after those years of financial idiocy comes President Obama but, before he can take office, the bottom falls out of an economy largely because the regulators were not paying attention. Yes, the debt has increased 4 trillion dollars since he took office but he did not spend it. It was spent before he took office. The bill just came due after he took office.

To be sure, there is some amount that is a result of President Obama's administration that was used to ease the suffering and try to lessen the effect of the deepest recession since the Great Depression but it is miniscule compared to what went before.

The last lesson of Vietnam? Don't ask the American People to feel the bite of war or experience the pain personally. During Vietnam the draft ensured that the pain was felt all over. The tax ensured that the price was felt all over. And the body bags coming home ensured that the horror was felt all over. During Iraq and Afghanistan we just sent the Reserves and the National Guard on tour after tour to help a seriously undermanned military and paid for it with a credit card. Sure, everyone put up flags and ribbons but now the bill is coming due.

My take on the lesson of history. One must remember and forward the lessons on.