Columnist Ruthe Deskin: Memories of war resurface

Ruthe Deskin

Thursday, Oct. 11, 2001 | 8:30 a.m.

The excited voice of a friend advised: "Turn on your TV. We are bombing Afghanistan."

Like many Americans, I had hoped it would not come to this, but I suppose it was inevitable.

Suddenly I found myself remembering a similar phone call some 36 years ago.

"Did you hear? Planes from the USS Hancock are on a bombing mission in Vietnam."

At the time, my daughter was living at home. Her husband was a Navy pilot stationed on the USS Hancock. There were many hours of fear and anguish for us as we were caught in the middle of the raucous anti-Vietnam war protests and our concern for the young men who were across the ocean fighting a war no one wanted.

My thoughts went back more years -- 60 to be exact -- when the voice of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt came over the radio with the news that Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor and the once-magnificent American fleet was in shambles.

That war became extremely personal for me.

A cousin was in England on ships escorting convoys through the Murmansk. My brother-in-law was a navigator on bombers flying missions over Germany. My very beloved brother was serving on a Navy ship somewhere in the Pacific. Another cousin was with Marine regiments storming the beaches of Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal. Hundreds of friends were in the armed forces.

Many of them lost their lives in combat.

It is easy for me to relate to the young wives, mothers and kin when they say goodbye to our military as they leave for combat zones.

How many wars in a lifetime?

In 1950-53 there was the agony of Korea that ended in a stalemate. The Gulf War was a major victory. Vietnam was a gigantic tragedy; the Bay of Pigs a disaster.

Countless skirmishes and incidents have brought us to the brink and too many American lives have been lost in fruitless efforts to achieve questionable goals.

Although we will hope for a quick end to hostilities, the chances are it will not be a Gulf War.

Osama bin Laden is an obsessed fanatic. Charismatic and evil, he is able to convince his followers that his ultimate goals are just. Unless he can be captured or eliminated, we are in for a long uphill battle.

It is a sad commentary on world history that, periodically, evil men come forward and create havoc and bloodshed. When they are gone, new prophets of doom seem to take center stage and the terror starts once more.

No one can tell me why.

As a true believer in the ancient philosophy "this too shall pass," I know our current seemingly unsurmountable problems will, one day, be history. But at what cost?

Planes dropping food packages to starving refugees along the Afghanistan borders are symbols of compassion that remind some of us of the Berlin airlifts. Who can forget the brave pilots who dropped food and supplies in embattled West Berlin?

As famed former New York Yankee Yogi Berra said, "It's deja vu all over again."