One of the seminal photographs of my war was this one of the young, naked Vietnamese girl fleeing the horrors of combat, taken in June 1972, five years after I decided to leave the Army and pursue a college degree under the newly-reinstated G.I. Bill. Like the tens of millions, perhaps more, around the world, who saw that photo, I was horrified, perhaps more than most, because I had been there and seen worse.  That picture brought all that collateral killing and wounding of those innocents caught in the war's crossfires back, to me far too vividly. Nothing has haunted me more from my tour as an infantry NCO in Vietnam than the now blessedly fading memories of children caught up in the violence they could not comprehend. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a bleeding heart; I'm a staunch supporter of America's military might being employed to defend our interests. But that doesn't mean I have to ever accept the killing of innocents that always seems to accompany military operations. For...(Read Full Post)