And So It Goes

From California (photo AP)

My father did his voluntary military service in the early 1960s and therefore was not a candidate to be drawn up for the Viet Nam war (he had graduated law school in 1961). Both my parents marched against the war, arriving in San Francisco after the Peace Corps, however I do not recall Viet Nam with its inglorious conclusion and the fall of Saigon in 1975. I would have been old enough -- but it was not in my field of awareness at age 8 and second grade had more important things to occupy my imagination. Like kickball. 

Of course now a professional military dissolves personal responsibility - what, me worry? - while young people today are aghast at what is happening in Gaza (though no opinion, it seems, about Ukraine or Kashgar).  I recall the middle-age father of a college girlfriend (Republican) informing me: "I' am God damn proud to see bombs dropping on Iraq and using the US military force correctly, for once." And so it goes.