This past month, I celebrated the 40th anniversary of my ordination to the Catholic priesthood. I was ordained May 12, 1971. At that time, American soldiers were dying in Viet Nam. So were thousands of innocent civilains caught in the war. The politicians in Washington,DC, told us that this war was necessary "to stop Communism." (Interesting, no politician during that entire time lost a loved one in that war.) Forty years later, our country does millions of dollars of business with "Communist Viet Nam". On the anniversary of my ordination, forty years since 1971, American soldiers are dying in another war, in Afghanistan.(Our soldiers are still dying in Iraq!) Again, thousands of innocent civilians are also dying. This time, the government tells us that we are fighting "to stop the terrorists."
We have sacrificed the lives of too many of our young men and women. We have over twenty-thousand (20,000) of our young adults PERMANENTLY DISABLED because of Iraq and Afghanistan. Over 100,000 innocent people (many of them women and children) have died and continue to die in these countries. We did not "win" in Viet Nam. We are not "winning" in Afghanistan. I don't even know what it means to "win" when all we see is more death, more people permanently disabled, more people hating us for fighting on their soil.
Forty years of priesthood, and the world has not changed. We still think the only way to "win" is to kill enough people whom we label "the enemy". It is time for our soldiers to come home to their families. It is time to leave Iraq and Afghanistan. If the politicians insist on fighting, then have them send over THEIR children to fight these wars. Most of the people in the Congress who want us to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan have never served in the military, never had anyone shoot at them.
I was once young. Some of the people I went to school with died in Viet Nam; their names are on "the Wall" in DC. I am older. I do not want to see the names of my family members, their young friends, your students, your children or grandchildren or godchildren on some other monument sometime in the future. Give this message to every person in the Hosue of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, the White House: BRING OUR TROOPS HOME...NOW!