Seeking Truth

Is there any truth left? Perhaps a better question, couched in different terms is, has there ever been truth, overall, in mankind’s attempts to govern? Or, anywhere else in history for that matter. Truth is difficult to ferret out whether it is news or conversation. We like to think that we are truthful and that those we speak with are also truthful but history can sometimes get in the way. Our own history. Things we are not proud of and figure are best left in the dark.

A for instance is when I came home from Vietnam and was subsequently released from service. As I went back to college I quickly learned that my duty performed there was best left unsaid. It was twenty years before anyone but close friends and family had any idea I was in that war. Life ain’t easy, now is it? No sense in making it more difficult so I learned to keep shut of my service. It was in 2010 that I was first thanked for my service and that came from a Coast Guardsman.

In no small way was this the reason I went back to scripture. I had once read the Bible around the age of 12 and was fascinated by it. In a way it, the Bible had sunk in to my psyche and dictated right from wrong which precluded my doing some fairly lousy things along the way. I will remain vague about what those were but they didn’t take place and I came out of that war without a guilty conscience. In no small measure was the whole experience weird as could be.

Remaining silent, as I had to, I later called home coming the, “ironic parade.” A celebration of the null is another way to put it. If you know an old vet, thank them for what they did and, more, the silence they had to go through when they came home. Vietnam is what took me out of the political buzz saw. I never have looked back, though I do find politics as interesting as a gaping wound.

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