The Con Man gets a visit from Lt. Colonel Dick Merrit and Seaman Dan Glidden, two retired veterans who stand for all that’s good about those who have served the country. Also: a bit of a rant of flag lapel pins and taking back the lapel flag pin–and the flags–from those who desecrate it with faux patriotism.
Click here for the complete “Con Games with Michael Conniff” for Memorial Day May 28, 2008.
Great show Mike. I’m always in awe around veterans who were “in country” — almost like they’ve come back from Dante’s 7th rung with their own very personal tale to tell. And when they find out it was based, as this one is, on a President’s lie. Well, just exactly how do they ever get over that?
Also something I read the other day about John McCain struck me as true and full of insight. It may have in fact come from a vet. He said, John’s incarceration during the war effectively froze his personal experience of the wider war at the time of its origin. He was not around for Free Fire Zones and the attrition of infantry year after year.
To be sure, he was in his own hell, but his experience of Vietnam begins and ends with a vital 5 years of the nightmare missing from his experience. Perhaps this is why he’ll be damned if we don’t finish in Iraq without unqualified success.
As for your discussion about America’s penchant for war. To quote Chalmers Johnson, who was talking about the armaments industry’s margins: “When war becomes this profitable, we’re going to see a lot more of them.”