War, Politics, No Point To This Post, Really

I have been thinking of late, being a child of the early 70's, catching ahold of the anti-government, make love not war, train, that things aren't always what they appear to be. While watching movies like Platoon, We Were Soldiers, and even movies like Braveheart, that there can never be anything attractive about war, at least not to someone like me, who looks at it more in terms of wasted human life more than anything. The reason for that, of course, lies in the age of most of those who have died in wars: sons and young fathers. Who, sanely speaking of course, can look at that part and cheer war, ever? I know I cannot. But I know something else too, and that is that the men who have died in the wars that my country have fought did not and do not, die in vain. Can I explain why I believe that? Maybe not coherently to someone who is adamantly anti-war, and even, God help us, anti-USA. Far too many people of my generation, and the subsequent one, have jumped on that band wagon and have not gotten off. A few truths I do know, at least regarding the VietNam War, and those are:

After we pulled out, losing literally thousands of lives, over three million of the Cambodian people, who were our allies, were systematically slaughtered! Those were the people that our youth and young father's fought and died for. Their's desperation to live free as we do here in the USA was the reason why we signed onto that war. Why do people persist in thinking that somehow it was all about the USA's government's supposed warmongering? Is that the excuse for not wanting to support our allies and those who want what we have? For shame that the pressure put on the military by my government lost that war. We were than, as we are now, the mightiest nation on the face of the planet! And I don't say that to brag, but to point out that it was ridiculous for us to lose that battle! Or, all those men. They were, in my opinion, sacrificed on the altar of politics, and not only by the Congress, but by every man and woman who put pressure on them to put pressure on the military. Think about this: we are allies with the country of Taiwan, a people who fiercely cling to their independence, and in some measure, to the USA, their ally. What if China moves to 'take' Taiwan? What do we do? Cut them loose? We will if we listen to the voices of anti-war, anti-USA? There is no way that I am a war supporter, what I am, however, is a supporter of the necessity of war to protect freedom.