Beheadings over the Years and Other Commentaries

By John Veteran

This book is a collection of some of the commentaries he wrote in his editorial-page column over the years. Most of his commentaries were about local matters, of specific interest to the community in which the newspaper was located, but all of these are of a more universal scope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503599857

John Veteran

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Copyright © 2015 by John Veteran.

ISBN:         Softcover         978-1-5035-9986-4

                  eBook         978-1-5035-9985-7

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Rev. date: 08/24/2015

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Beheadings Over The Years

Taxation Without Representation, American Style

Why The Income Gap Between The Top And The Bottom Keeps Increasing At An Ever-Increasing Rate

Some Would Seem To Favor Legalized Murder

The Hazard Of Reaching The Age Of Accountability

The Leaders And The Followers

Rich Moms, Poor Moms

Some Thoughts About Medals

The Source Of America’s Cultural War

A Way To End The Cultural War And Bring Peace And Harmony

Hip, Hip, Hoo-Ray For Dr. K!

A Compromise On Legalized Euthanasia Proposed

Strange Bedfellows Indeed

Dogmatism—A Major Cause Of Conflict

Conflicting Views Of The Jews Can Confuse

Confusing Cause And Effect

Justice, American Style

Politically Correct Strays From Literal Meaning

Mallard Attacks The He/She/They Glitch

Careers Could Be Really Long

A Randomly Selected Supreme Court

Resentment: A Root Cause Of Crime And Other Anti-Social Behavior

Ebonics Makes More Sense

Bee-Gees On My Mind

A Moral Dilemma For Mallard

A Connoisseur Of Mustard Sandwiches

Why We All Want To Win So Badly

A Mechanical Moron’s Quest For Understanding

Some Thoughts Upon Six Decades Of Roaming The Earth

Spirituality As Portrayed In The Media

Walking In A Summer Wonder Land?

Memories Of A Loyal Senators Fan

An Idle Pondering

Where Is Nat Albright?

He’s, She’s, And It’s

A Day That Shocked The World, 25 Years Ago

A New Plea Is Needed

The Need For Conservation: Two Vastly Different Perspectives

Going Overboard For The Common Good

Two Different Approaches To Poverty

Good Old Spelling Check Comes To The Rescue Again

Two Different Ways To Interpret Always

The Day I Experienced A Level Of Thirst That I Didn’t Know Existed

A Way To Make Unions More Appealing In Dixie?

Si Was Wrong About The Beatles

The War Cycle – The Dark Side Of Human Nature

A Midnight Encounter At The Tallahassee Bus Station

Doing A Good Deed Was Within Reach

Memories Of The Summer Of Love And Lsd

Tempus Fugit

Just What Is A Cult?

No! Nothing At All!

Memories Of A Shell-Shocked Wwii Veteran

A Question About The Morbid Count

Some Thoughts Upon Watching The Abc-Tv Documentary On Potential Disastrous Consequences Of The Combined Effect Of Global Warming, Overpopulation, And Depletion Of Natural Resources On The World By The Year 2100

Feeling The Pain Inside

111 Consecutive 9’S And 0’S

Say It Ain’t So, Proctor And Gamble!

A Half-Century Has Really Changed Attitudes

Why Do Dog Catchers Get A Bum Rap?

Kemosabe Back On The Trail!

Will The Rain Ever Break Its Losing Streak?

When It Comes To A Healthy Greeting, The Japanese Got It Right

Different Minds Comprehend Different Things

Are We A Horse?

The Night The Tet Offensive Began

Short-Timers

PREFACE

This book is a collection of commentaries that John Veteran wrote during his forty-six-year career as a reporter/editor of small weekly newspapers.

He is also the author of Three Novels by Dalton Henson, published by Exposition Press in 1977; The Friendly Stranger, published by Xlibris in 2015; and A Would-Be Adventurist’s Quest for Combat, published by Xlibris in 2015.

BEHEADINGS OVER THE YEARS

(Context: This was written in late 2004.)

Much has been said recently about beheadings done by Iraqi insurgents. That brings to my mind an incident that occurred in the summer of 1968 when I was the information specialist for the 937th Combat Engineer Group in Pleiku, Vietnam.

The 937th’s Information Office was staffed by myself (a specialist fifth class) and the information officer, First Lieutenant Roland Richardson. Lieutenant Richardson was a 23-year-old (I was 25) black man from Manhattan, and had a college degree in architecture. He was about 5'8 tall (I was 6'6). He was a very nice, soft-spoken, even-tempered person.

In addition to being information officer, Lt. Richardson was also a member of the 937th’s Civic Action Team, whose duty was to undertake various projects intended to improve relations with the Vietnamese people. I would go along on civic action projects to write stories and take pictures.

One such project was rebuilding the city hall in the village of Bien Ho. The Viet Cong had burned down the original city hall, due to its affiliation with the South Vietnamese government. It was just a small one-story building.

To get to Bien Ho, you turned off the main road, onto a narrow dirt road. The village was about a half-mile along that road. It was adjacent to an enormous tea plantation, operated by a French company. The V.C. were said to hide out in the tea plantation during the daytime, and come out at night to conduct their military operations.

There were many large trees on both sides of the road as it passed through the village. All of the houses were what we would call sub-standard but they were nonetheless well-maintained. I thought that, overall, the village was very beautiful and peaceful. A few South Vietnamese army soldiers regularly patrolled the street, carrying rifles.

In the center of the village was a white stucco building that was both a Catholic church, staffed by a French priest and several French nuns, and a school for the Bien Ho children. The priest and nuns operated the school. When we were at the city hall construction site, we could hear the children singing happily inside the school.

The city hall construction crew consisted of Bien Ho villagers—women, elderly men, and adolescent boys who were not old enough to be drafted by either the South Vietnamese army or the V.C. (Healthy young men had to choose one of the two.) The workers were all paid for their labor by the U.S. Military. One of our Civic Action Team members, a specialist fourth class, would also help with the work, and Lieutenant Richardson and another lieutenant would supervise them.

One morning when our Civic Action Team arrived at the village, the only person working at the city hall site (where the foundation was still being laid) was an elderly man with a long, pointed beard. Usually when we arrived, four or five people would be working.

The priest was in the front yard of the church/school, and he beckoned for Lieutenant Richardson to come over. They talked for a couple of minutes and Lieutenant Richardson walked back over to where I and the two other 937th Group members were standing. He was visibly upset, and when he spoke, his voice trembled slightly.

He said the V.C. came into the village last night and said they would cut off the heads of anybody who worked on the city hall, Lieutenant Richardson said.

Thus ended our Civic Action Team’s effort to rebuild the Bien Ho City Hall. It’s probably just as well; the V.C. would undoubtedly have just burned it down again anyway.

Incidentally, I’ve often wondered if the elderly man who was working at the site that day didn’t understand the potential consequences of what he was doing, or perhaps he was just defying the V.C.

TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION, AMERICAN STYLE

The United States has an all or nothing type of representative democracy.

We hear it said, for instance, Representative Sam Jones represents the First District in Congress. But, in truth, Representative Jones only represents the residents of that district who share his political agenda. How can it be said that you are represented by someone who votes opposite from the way you would vote on virtually every divisive issue that comes before Congress? Or expresses opposite opinions than you would express during debates?

Consider the following example (and I am greatly oversimplifying things for the purpose of explaining my point):

A conservative candidate