No. No. No. I was not aiming at you or anyone else. Please do not take it personally — please. I was so taken with your story, I responded with mine.

The first time I went to the Vietnam Memorial in DC, I was with a man who’d been a draft dodger and went to Canada. Tom was so nervous, I thought it would be best if we waited and visited at night. Turns out I was right, Tom broke down sobbing so hard he fell to his knees and bellowed (it was awful). It was almost midnight and a park ranger saw what was happening, nodded his head and walked away.

The reason Tom left for Canada, was the same reason some of our other friends, signed up. It was how we felt about each other — not America, not our families, and certainly not Vietnam. Shit by the time you’re 8 you know your parents are so busy fighting the same shit you are, they can’t help you.

We were in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement and the white hippies and white flower children were so flagrant, they hid the fact that the people getting drafted to fight that war were poor kids, brown kids and black kids.

In poor neighborhoods — my neighborhood — kids getting draft notices had no way out. We didn’t have the luxury of pretending it all away. One brother got a draft notice and his brothers, cousins and friends refused to let him go alone and signed up. They did NOT sign up for America, they went to protect each other. Three brothers in one family gone. Others came home dying the slow death of drug addictions and alcoholism. Others suffered flashbacks, night terrors and insomnia for decades.

Others, like Tom, suffered survivors guilt (and that is emasculating).

I am with you, but far more cautious. Once again, the liberal elite are rushing to the spotlight and babbling stupid shit — and drowning out the voices of people we need to hear. If white people don’t shut up and get the microphones into the hands of “others” the next war will be on American soil.