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James Quinn's avatar

Dr Fukuyama makes an excellent point. I’m a year older than Trump, so I’m all too well aware of what was going on here about the time he found a way to avoid military service. He certainly wasn’t the only one to do so. A number chose Canada over military service. A number were able, like Trump, to find medical excuses, not all of them valid. Some choose conscientious objector status, some for valid reasons and some not. A number hid in one way or another - some successfully, some not.

We continue to debate the validity of the Vietnam War (as well as several of those which followed). By the time I had to make that decision in early 1967 after three years of college exemptions, it was already clear that the war was at best a murky business, fraught with mixed motives, questionable goals, and a growing awareness of its capacity to tear us apart.

I did not want to fight in a war, and especially not in that one. Call it cowardice, and that would be partly right. Call it a growing understanding that we were involved in a no win situation over there, and that would be partly right. So when I met with the local army recruiter when it seemed the draft was opening its arms to me, I took the standard battery of tests and found I qualified for the Army Language School in Monterey, California and a slot in communicaions intelligence. It meant a four year active duty commitment, and it did not guarantee that I wouldn’t go to Vietnam, but I felt it was the best option I had short of draft avoidance, which I was not prepared to attempt. I’m not entirely sure why not, even today, but I knew that if I did, I would regret it. And I did know that I didn’t want that regret following me through my life.

Turned out I spent the next four years in army schools in Texas and California, eighteen months on Okinawa, and a year in Colorado. I certainly wasn’t always happy with what I was doing, and, partly due to what I learned through that service, I continued to grow in my understanding of the mistake we were making in Vietnam. But for a number of reasons I won’t go into here, I’ve never regretted my decision, It was an invaluable experience, and, yes, unlike so many thousands of my generation, I was able to come home alive and unscarred..

Trump willingly gave up the opportunity to gain that experience of service, and in doing so, lost something not entirely definable, but equally devastating; the hard knowledge of a kind of failure not ever recoverable. It must indeed eat at him, as it certainly would still be eating at me.

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Wayne Karol's avatar

Warning: I am a baby boomer, and will be making some Beatles references.

I'm not sure if Trump meets the technical definition of fascist or if he's just Fascistmania, an incredible simulation. Either way, Fukuyama's right that to people who aren't seriously into politics, it just sounds like this-ism, that-ian, ism ism ism.

I've always said that the best way to understand Trump is as an abuser: as someone who sincerely believes that life is abuse or be abused. (Who doesn't understand that the point of things like democracy and human rights and the rule of law is to increase the space where those aren't the only choices.) His supporters are convinced that he'll only abuse the people they want him to: "He'd never abuse US, he LOVES us!" That's not how it works with abusers.

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