A war. A Father and a son. Some guy in the grocery store

[Moostache]

20. Things changed under Reagan...what was real became fake and vice versa.

I remember the initial movies about the Vietnam War, the ones like Coming Home, Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now in the mid- to late-70's...dark, brooding films that made a point of portraying the way the war impacted people, affected them, changed them and their families. These were unrelenting looks at what consequences war can lead to - broken bodies, broken spirits, broken families and towns. They did not sugar coat things or try to make our misadventures in Southeast Asia seem like a victory lap of the region.

This was none too popular with the people who are today's raging "I love 'murica" hyper/pseudo-patriots or yesteryear's Reagan fanatics. They did not like the idea of possibly learning something from a mistake or a miscalculation or a misapplication of military power..."we are AMERICA!!!", in their eyes and to this day, we never apologize, for anything, to anyone, EVER.

They remember a different time of reflection on Vietnam and a different kind of veteran - John Rambo, and not the one from "First Blood" - the very excellent book and largely forgettable movie, but the utterly bastardized one from the Stallone propaganda sequels to a story that originally ended with the Vietnam Vet dying in a stand-off with police. Chuck Norris' POW rescue films were also spawned from this fantasy-version of Vietnam and its aftermath.

We were transformed from a shattered and questioning nation into a steroid-fueled, cocky, arrogant, "Fuck Yeah!" idiot farm. We went from a nation capable of introspection and growth to a raging adolescent with hormonal highs and delusional images of immortality and super-powers. I wish it weren't so, but it is and it has been for a very long time now. Anyone who dares to write or reflect the less than stellar aspects of America circa 2013 is immediately suspect, and dismissed as "fringe"....irrespective of political affiliation - and I do not mean the bloodless fringe zealots or right or left, I mean the people who dare to try to influence others in reasonable ways or to see things differently.

9/11 never had even a brief moment of introspection. We were invading Afghanistan within 4 weeks and have been at "war" ever since. We had lies and epic abuses of power and yet no war crimes, no trials, no consequences...later we have had massive financial fraud and theft and the near collapse of the global economy and yet....no consequences, no trials, no reflection.

America has not changed, America has lost its very soul and is currently a husk of a nation being fed on by vultures and scavengers who could care less and really are only concerned with how much profit they can squeeze out of the death throes. We are, we are...a waste of a nation (all apologies to P.O.D. and to those who can't make that particular connection)...