This song became the anthem of a generation that opposed the war in Vietnam. There is no question that Iraq is not quite as bad as Vietnam, but if you’re the relative of someone serving there numbers are not important. The life and health of your family member is the only important thing.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iPBm_cES94]
Working Assets’, Working for Change campaign to pressure pro-war Congressmen and women recalled to my mind the pressure that we had to exert back then to end the war. The lyrics and melody of this song by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young still cause the hair on my arm to stand. I have not forgotten Vietnam nor its lessons. Human life is precious and war will never bring peace or security. War only brings more of itself.
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We’re finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?Gotta get down to it
My dad used to play a tape with this on it when we were on our way – him to the hospital and me to high school. It also had “Teach Your Children” on it, which was my favorite. I think part of the problem is that few people really think about the war at all – it’s far away “over there” with so few people really involved that it’s sometimes hard for people to really think it’s *real* in the same way that rents and mortgages and jobs and cars and people you see every day are real.
Even I have felt the lifting of the burden over the past couple months. I hear news from Iraq or Afghanistan and am upset, but not with the stomach-clenching fear and anger of a few months ago. I wish I could be doing more, but at the same time, know that I need some time to recover from Dad’s deployment. How much more distance must someone have who never had a face to put on the war?