Best of all not send soldiers out to fight

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column

MichaelComane

If you have access to Netflix, then I can't recommend strongly enough that you watch 'The Vietnam War'. It is brilliant. It's long, 10 episodes with each episode lasting just under two hours.

Had I been born in the US and not Ireland most likely I would have been called up to serve in Vietnam, that is unless I was a draft dodger like Trump, Clinton or Bush junior.

The film brings home the madness of the United States' involvement in Vietnam.

Denton 'Mogie' Crocker was a young military enthusiast who pleaded with his parents to let him go to Vietnam. He was not in South East Asia a month when he realised what war is about.

The 19-year-old from Saratoga Springs came home in a coffin. He received a military funeral. Not much compensation for him or his family and friends.

These days when there is so much talk about marking the end of World War I, I have been thinking  of Vietnam, indeed, of all wars where mayhem reigns and many lose their lives or are maimed for life, physically and psychologically. I am also thinking of the politicians who send soldiers to war, the industrialists who supply the arircraft, the tanks, the guns and all the paraphernalia that is used to kill and maim people.

There has been endless discussion in Ireland surrounding the wearing of the poppy.

Stoke City and Irish International striker James McClean is regularly in the news this time of year because he refuses to wear football shirts bearing the symbol of the remembrance poppy when playing games in the days close to November 11, Armistice Day.

James is from Derry and has his own personal reasons for not wearing the poppy. Surely it's not obligatory to wear it?

Of course it is commendable that we honour the dead of war. It makes sense to celebrate the end of World War I.

Ireland and England have had their difficulties and thank God our two countries are currently at peace and the Good Friday Agreement holds firm.

But every time I see celebrations commemoraiting battles, wars, the ending of wars, flag ceremonies, I can't help but think of all those men and women who have been killed on the battlefield.

Whether the commemorations take place in Washington, Paris, London, Moscow, Beijing, Dublin, I'm always nervous.

It's true to say that most of the soldiers were and are cannon fodder for the high politicians and wealthy industrialists who send them out to kill and maim.

War is mad and bad. And there is always the danger commemorating wars and the end of wars that societies can in some subliminal way romanticise the evil and violence of war.

The politicians and industrialists, the queens and kings who sent poor women and men to their deaths are more or less represented by their descendants on the podiums and platforms who will these days be calling on us to remember the dead of World War I.

I'd much prefer if they had never sent them out to fight in the first place. 

And I can well imagine that too is the sentiment of young idealistic Denton 'Mogie' Crocker's sister, Carol, who saw first-hand the pain and suffering that the Vietnam War caused her family. And they are still living with the pain.

I'm also thinking of the bombers flying in the skies of Syria and Yemen, the suffering being inflicted on the population, and then the industrialists who supply the weapons of death.