A Nation of Amnesia

The woman who came to America as a refugee of the Vietnam War and now develops missiles to be sold by corporations to the United States' government haunted me even after the documentary's end. She could easily have been part of the "collateral damage" wreaked by the United States military, so how then can she aid the war machine every day? I turned her around and around in my mind, trying to grasp her rationale. I feel like I should. Many of my maternal extended family fled with the first flood of highly educated citizens from Saigon after its fall. My father came with my grandfather in the early 90s, after my grandfather was released from one of the government's many "reeducation camps". When I returned just last year, the air was still rank with bitterness. America had promised to "liberate a people" only to withdraw support for fear of defeat.

If that sounds familiar to you, you share the sentiments of my relatives. The Iraq war brought up all the old dislike for them It should've for the woman. But maybe she isn't kept awake at night from her role in the war. Maybe it's just a job. Maybe she's forgotten Vietnam. She would not be the only one. An entire nation forgot. "War against terror" and "liberate Iraq" rolls off the tongue as easily as "war against communism" and "liberate Vietnam" did. Then, we turn right around and say we always knew it was wrong. Does the woman now regret having built all those missiles? I don't know.

I've never lived through the Vietnam War. Likewise, I never went through the grief-stricken panic of 9/11. I can't say I would've connected the dots had I actually been here for that. I only know that an entire nation took the wrong action because of its reactionary attitude – devoid of thought of either the past or the future – and I will not lay all the blame at Bush's feet. It feared, as a nation, that it was not invincible, and as a nation, it decided to show the world it was. The woman distinguishes between the government and the people. I do not. My relatives do not. Their dislike extends beyond the administration to encompass the entire American people. After all, we are accountable for our nation's actions. Isn't that the meaning of democracy?

The question of the documentary was not why we fight for me. It's how did we get here? America is a country of amnesia because we do not remember the past, yes, but also because we like looking around in confusion after an action we took has gone wrong, as if we were sleepwalking the whole time. We remember WWII, where we fought evil, were justified, and instated as the world's police. We do not remember the other wars, where the enemy is decidedly not the Nazis. How did we go into Iraq or Afghanistan? How did the military-industrial complex come true? How did we get to the point where we no longer trust our elected officials? How did the mark of a well-informed citizen (or a pretentious teenager) become mockery of America and its democracy? The flower of the American spirit has slowly grown from WWII into a weed.

The progression is so gradual and we don't comprehend, because we are a nation of amnesia and we act as one. Anyone who disagrees is "unpatriotic", and the "sacrifice of the troops" is forever waved in their faces. Because I was not part of the experience, I see the stubbornness, bigotry, hypocrisy, hubris – but I see it with tears. Not because I'm soft and cry whenever I see war footage (though it is true), but because I am American, and I am patriotic. I cry from shame and fear. I am ashamed of how far we've drifted and I'm scared to death of the U.S.'s fall – and that is possible, damn those who call me un-American, damn the people who say we are the best. Whether we are is irrelevant. We must only remember we are not infallible. Remember Rome. The very seeds of its fall are germinating. Corruption. Recession. Mercenaries. Remember Vietnam. We went in for the wrong reasons, and lost– excuse me, withdrew. Remember we are our country's actions. Let America and the country of amnesia not synonymous.