EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 SERVICE

Best I can remember, it was in late summer of 1973. The crime? We both skipped work to stay home and watch a full day of the Senate Watergate hearings on television. Former Richard Nixon aide John Ehrlichman was testifying. The terms riveting and spell binding don’t even begin to describe the effect. The future of our country stood on one of those dangerous precipices of history. You know the feeling—where we are now.

The high point of the day was when the late Senator Daniel Ken "Dan" Inouye, one of the committee members forgot that his microphone was live after Ehrlichman finished his testimony. As people began stirring, Senator Inouye, a decorated World War Two veteran of the famed Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team, leaned back and said, “What a liar.”

As an aside, having lost an arm in combat, Senator Inouye was a perfect example of the kind of hero that modern conservatives and evangelicals would demean and denigrate for his service, a clear sign of our sailing into the abyss.

Just ask Max Cleland, John Kerry, or John McCain. Or, we can check yesterday's headlines.

Now, as they say, “It’s déjà vu all over again.” We can almost see the venom dripping from the fangs of those who would disparage a man’s 24 years of service in uniform for political gain.

As one who grew up not long after World War Two ended, it is difficult, very difficult, for me to accept a veteran’s service to America as a negative wedge issue.

In the springtime of my adulthood, after the winter of my own military service, I often wondered how some people could hate a veteran. I suppose it is easier if your cult tells you to.

The lure of the Kool-Aide is strong with these people.