Warrior to Warrior

Vietnam veteran and author John Harriman returns to Mudville with the latest installment of his series Warrior to Warrior, letters from a Vietnam veteran to our soldiers in Iraq.

The new Encino Man is . . . You

Dear Warrior in Iraq . . .

I began thinking about our soldiers in Iraq -- you -- last weekend, wondering again about the kind of world you'll come back to when you come back to "The World."

I know that you're wired into the Internet and you have access to the national news. Still, I can't help thinking that each of you is going to feel like the Encino Man not long after your feet hit the ground back here in the states.

If you don't remember Encino Man, it's entirely understandable. It was a ditzy, forgettable movie on the Rip van Winkle theme to extreme in which two surfer teens in California dig up a Stone Age teenager preserved in ice. It takes awhile for Encino Man to adjust to the modern world but, eventually he does and . . . I don't remember the rest.

What got me thinking about the Encino Man syndrome was a news program, a newspaper story and a book.

In the news program Geraldo Rivera was raving about the United States Army arriving in New Orleans to help evacuate victims of the hurricane. For a few seconds, it felt gratifying to hear somebody give credit for positive events instead of blame for the chaos in New Orleans. But, as I say, that feeling lasted only for a few seconds.

Geraldo began hopping up and down and shouting and dragging one General after another on camera. It wasn't enough to congratulate them and shake their hands. He wanted to trade high-fives and hugs -- and I swear, for a moment, I thought he was going to kiss one of those generals.

For their part, the generals were fairly subdued, standing there with stony, frightened smiles as if they were about to be slobber-kissed by Aunt Geraldo. None of the three had the nerve to punch him out on national television, but each of the three wanted to. You know the look.

And I thought: this is what passes for good news on television.

When you get home, you, too, will have people fawning all over you, sliming you with their insincerity on the news. It has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with proving that they support troops while hating war -- and especially your commander-in-chief.

In the news story, a national reporter was recapping the life of the deceased chief justice of the United States, William Rehnquist. Not once but twice, the reporter wrote, without a hint of irony, that part of the legacy of Rehnquist was to have awarded the presidency to George W. Bush in the 2000 elections. The subject of the endless Florida recounts that established that Mr. Bush was, in fact, elected, is no longer open to debate. He was appointed by the Supreme Court. It is history. It is fact merely by the act of constant repetition. This is what passes for straight news. Get used to it.

Those strange strangers who claim to love you, the soldier, will bleed you with a thousand little nicks. They will tell you your effort was wasted, the chaos remains, that you were a victim of lies and a tool of oil men. Not outright, but in the asides, like that bit about the presidency.

But all is not doom and gloom. There's a book out there you need to read before you come home. Its title is "100 People Who Are Screwing up America (and Al Franken is #37)" by Bernard Goldberg.

What's great about this book is not just that Goldberg takes on wackos from both the right and (mostly) the left.

What's great is that Goldberg uses his sharp wit and the very words of the people he lampoons to prove they should not be taken too-o-o seriously.

Oh, it's not just the extremists like the woman who founded PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who protested to Yassar Arafat that terrorists who blow up Israelis should stop using donkeys to carry the explosives. Heck with the people murdered--she didn't care about them. But that jackass, well, in that segment there were two, but you'll have to read for yourself.

Goldberg takes on many others who carry the mantle of respectability: Dan Rather (there's a history there), Jimmy Carter, Robert Byrd, "Will and Grace," Eminem, Edward Kennedy, Barbara Walters and a whole lot of others, including violent game-makers and news executives. Oh, and celebrities.

If you're a conservative who follows such things, as I admit I do, you have seen much of Goldberg's logic before, in the writings of others. There's something else there, though, something that you . . . Encino Man, needs to bear in mind as you readjust to The World.

It's the sense that the people on Goldberg's list do seem to find an inordinately louder voice in America than the average citizen, say, you . . . Encino Man. But it's all right for you to feel and think for yourself. Just because Dan Rather, for one, says it's true, doesn't mean it is so.

In your gut you know you're right about some things. It's very likely that hundreds of people--100 in particular that Goldberg names--are just dead wrong about America.

And there is a huge group of others with no voice at all who feel just as you do.

Till next week . . .

God bless you and Godspeed.

John is a veteran of two combat tours in Vietnam and a member of the American Legion. His novel, Delta Force #1 : Operation Michael's Sword is a fictional account of the 9/11 attacks and the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom.

And today we're proud to announce the publication of the second of John's Delta books, Prelude to War