So why did I refuse to fight in the Vietnam War if I'm not a pacifist? Was it not my duty as an American to defend my country? Was it not my duty to follow the orders of my leaders regardless of where those orders might lead me? Ours is not to reason why...ours is but to do and die? These questions are all very simple in form to me, their answers are of no great mystery. To this very day, with questions such as these I simply look to my heart for the answers, that very same heart that tells me that it is not only okay, but that it is morally and ethically right to defend the things I love, to do whatever is necessary to care for those that I care about. The sense of what is right and what is wrong is not a trait or instinct that requires cultivation, it is mature at conception. We all feel it's presence from day one. We all know that it is constantly on guard. Unlike others, I simply chose then as I try to always choose now, to heed it's warning. My leaders then offered me no proof whatsoever, what little it probably would have taken at such a politically naive and youthfully charged time in my life, that the war in Viet Nam was a war in defense of America. I rationalized it in every way imaginable, I was fully aware of the consequences of my decision, still I found no reason for that war, or at least for America's involvement in it. I found no justification for the hundreds of dead, young Americans that Walter Cronkite paraded before us every week, or for the horrific photos of the children of Viet Nam, maimed, diseased and crippled by the ravages of war that blared out from the pages of Life, Look and other magazines. I could find no cause in my being that would permit me to become a part of the makers of such misery.

Isn't it the duty of every American to defend America? Indeed it is every American's duty to defend America, however, defend America against what? Against whom? I honestly believe that of the literally thousands of draft resisters and deserters that I met during my years spent in Canada, probably every one of them would have unhesitantly rushed to defend America had America been under attack. I do sincerely believe this. We were all pretty much red-blooded America boys, most of us just were not prepared to needlessly spill that blood in a war that posed no threat to our homeland. The war in Viet Nam was not our war, that is to say, not America's war. It was not a war that threatened us, it was not a war in defense of America. America's might, in defense of America is one thing but once that might leaves the shores of America, it is no longer truly American. It is impregnated with the ways of every other force that comes into contact with it along the way. It is bastardized, adulterized and restructured to fit the means and the moment. The American Government wades into wars such as Viet Nam bearing the cross of, "defense of the homeland". By the time the battle begins, the war has become personal, it's win or lose, cause of, reason for and all related matters are irrelevant. Woe be to those before the armies that march fueled by blind faith and whose ranks are filled with the conscripted.

I was not born into an enlightened pedigree. The political interests of my immediate family were pretty much null and void when I was growing up. Not a single conversation do I recall on their part dealt with any political or social matters whatsoever. It was a pretty much "meat & potatoes" upbringing. Where my own political views were nutured I know not exactly. I do recall discovering the power of the powers-that-be when I was about nine years old. My grandfather and I stood together in my front yard and watched as the State took ten feet or so of our land to widen the road. He explained to me the why's and how's of it. Still, I stood in disblief. This was our land, not the State's, not the governments! Eminent Domain were the most bitter of words that my young tongue had ever tasted. That Christmas, at the age of ten, I ask for a set of law books. I didn't get them. No doubt because by then the entire matter had been forgotten by everyone...everyone except me, that is. To this day, I still seethe at the thought of what's yours, or mine, not being ours, simply because the government, our government, can say so.