What were we fighting for?

I believe we were fighting for the cause of freedom in Vietnam - just as our fathers fought for freedom in World War II. And freedom always wins - eventually. It's hard-wired in the human DNA. The thugs that usurped freedom using violence - Hitler in Germany, Stalin in Russia, Mao in China, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, Pol Pot in Cambodia, etc. - by murdering tens of millions of their countrymen in an attempt to force centralized government control over the lives of their people all ultimately lost to the forces of freedom.

Today, freedom is under assault here in the United States. Everyday, more and more power is concentrated politically in Washington and economically on Wall Street. The casualty is individual freedom. It's loss has not been sudden and shocking but subtle and, at times, imperceptible. Who is the enemy now? Is it the devil as Paul Harvey says in this 1965 radio broadcast (below) that has recently received wide circulation? Or is it the do-gooders? After all, isn't the road to hell paved with good intentions? Or could the enemy be ourselves?

Paul Harvey's remarks here are almost 48 years old now - stated about the time we were all training to fight against Communism in Southeast Asia in the mid-1960s. Many of his comments have proven to be prophetic. Listen for yourself ...


(Turn up audio.)

"In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it — and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country." -- John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1961

"L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés et désirs (hell is full of good wishes and desires)." -- Bernard of Clairvaux

"We have met the enemy, and he is us." -- Pogo (Walt Kelly), 1971