What would Uncle Francis think?

My wife asked me what my Uncle Francis (who recently passed away) would have thought about the whole situation. Uncle Francis's first wife was French. He also served in Vietnam and was awarded the purple heart. A grenade blew up his war buddy and part of his ankle as well.

I don't know what he would have thought. Too bad I can't ask.

But I can think back to some of the conversations  I had with him. Some people might call him a racist. But it was the type of racism that was like this. We're on different teams, and for the most part the jerseys we're wearing are skin color. But if you're family, obviously we're on the same team no matter the skin color, but that's different. He didn't believe people were less than. He just saw them as being on the other side.... unless there was some sort of exception where they were on the same side.


A lot of this think this way, we just don't admit it. That's why when we see the terrorists had a Syrian pass port, we suddenly want to paint in broad strokes.

Would Uncle Francis be calling for Boots on the ground?

I don't know.

He wasn't anti-war I don't think. But having fought a war, he wasn't in a rush to fight another one I don't thin either. He talked about doing Yoga and fasting and being very about Peace when he came back from Vietnam. But then he said he got to far away from the mainstream and had to come back.

A lot of Americans always talked about not wanting "another Vietnam" when talking about the Middle East. The Iraq war. And now the conflict we are already involved in.

There was this fear, back then, that Communists would attack America, or cause some sort of uprising. But I don't feel like that fear was as real as the fear of a terrorist attack. After all all you need is a couple of misguided youth and some home made weapons to create a serious tragedy. Happened already. And it seems like stuff just gets worse.

But what does that mean?

You can't fight fire with fire.

Well actually you can and we do, but is it effective?

You know when France did the "retaliatory" air strikes.... that wasn't something that was new. We were going to carry out those. But we let France do it early sort of just to make them feel better. But actually we haven't even gotten more violent because of the violence in Paris. We (as in the West.) Just did what we were already going to do.


You know I would like to hear some guidance from Uncle Francis right now. From someone who actually fought a war, who didn't mice words, but who probably would not want to just enter into war lightly. I'm not saying we would agree, but I would like to hear what he had to say.

Well, what do Veteran's think about this? I'm sure there are differing opinions. I would like to here in the comments below.

And please share the conversation by sharing my post.