The six-sentence, GirlieOnTheEdge blog challenge prompt this week is refuse. After a lot of stumbling around thinking of something to refuse, I settled upon a nation’s scar that still hurts.
People called them cowards; the government put them in prison if they stayed in country; they lost homes and families if they didn’t.
Men who refused the draft during the Vietnam Conflict paid a price for their disbelief, as did those who believed differently, and those who went anyway—and the whole country paid right along with them. I think we’re still paying.
A friend admitted he didn’t believe. “But,” he told me, “I didn’t have the courage to disappoint my dad.”
I wonder how those believers and disbelievers felt when Robert McNamara finally said, the U.S. “could and should have withdrawn from South Vietnam” as early as late 1963—I know how I felt.
It was such an awful war and such an awful time. Great six
It was indeed, Paul. Writing those six sentences reminds me that I should see about publishing a short story about women trying to find mates during those years. If the U.S. administration continues poking Iran, it may be current again–except a lot of those women will be in the thick of it this time. Then what about the children left behind?
Such a conflicting time. The country and the world was in a state of turmoil. Some of those who left the country in protest never did return home.
Excellent SSS.
I ran across one several years ago. I was doing a family memoir about his newspaper family and I learned that he had left for Canada and never returned. They have enough money to meet in the Caymans for annual vacations.
very well done
having been there, one cannot help to lose the sense of trust in those with power
thought-provoking Six
Agreed. It’s been a while since I’ve had much trust in our political leadership.
While I was very young at the time, I remember watching the controversy and arguments over that war play out in the news. So many families torn apart.
And the cycle continues.
It does seem endless and the U.S. is more and more often the aggressor.
It was a scary time, i understood very little of it then. Now it makes me very sad to study that history.
A time so hard for those who served only to return without respect. Saw it with my brother and my boyfriend at the time. I learned a lot about emotional turmoil from the letters from my boyfriend and often would try to talk him through it with my letters. Wow!That’s been so long ago. Great six!
At least we learn from history. Right?
Laugh out loud, Ms. D. I guess if we only lose three or four thousands of Americans soldiers destabilizing a whole region is okay. If we keep poking Iran . . .