By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

Their's not to reason why,

Their's not to make reply,

Their's but to do and die,

Into the valley of Death,

Rode the six hundred."[2]

So wrote Alfred, Lord Tennyson in his "Charge of the Light Brigade" about the harsh realities and tragedy of wars.[2]

Franklin D. Roosevelt gave us World War II, while Dwight D. Eisenhower won that war in Europe—or much of the continent might be speaking German today.  John F. Kennedy thrust us into Vietnam, and almost launched a nuclear holocaust with the Soviet Union.

Lyndon Johnson expanded JFK's Vietnam War, while years earlier Harry Truman gave us the war in Korea.[3]  America's Democrats have often been the party of war, while Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush brought down the Soviet Union without a shot being fired.

Friends of mine died during the Vietnam War; and I was in Berlin when the ragtag Soviet military was retreating to "tent cities" in the USSR, and selling their uniforms and plumbing fixtures from their barracks. 

Today, brain-addled Joe Biden has America at war in distant Ukraine, with the Ukrainians serving as our proxies or surrogates.  China is on the verge of invading Taiwan, and flexing its military muscles elsewhere globally, including an ever-expanding and ominous presence in our own hemisphere.

Anyone who thinks that a war is a great and glorious undertaking, knows very little or nothing about wars.  Those who have lost friends or loved ones, or seen them maimed, has a truer sense of the costs.  Right now, Russia's butcher Vladimir Putin is conducting a savage war in Ukraine, where rape and torture are commonplace.

China is equally brutal.  There are approximately one million Uyghurs and other prisoners in Chinese concentration camps.  EMP weapons have been used by China in its border war with India.  If anyone thinks that China would hesitate to engage in tactics approximating or exceeding what Putin has done, gross naïveté is evident.

Lastly, anyone reading this article may be required to serve in our next war, or will have loved ones who will do so; and this includes both men and women.

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© 2023, Timothy D. Naegele

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[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate's Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass).  See, e.g., Timothy D. Naegele Resume-21-8-6  and https://naegeleknol.wordpress.com/accomplishments/   He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University.  He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service).  Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Law, and Who's Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/articles/ and https://naegeleknol.wordpress.com/articles/), and studied photography with Ansel Adams.  He can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2]  See, e.g., https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Maud,_and_other_poems/The_Charge_of_the_Light_Brigade and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred,_Lord_Tennyson ("Alfred, Lord Tennyson")

[3]  See, e.g., https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War ("Korean War")