News Summary

As we neared the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq, I couldn't help thinking about the Woman Who Didn't Want to be Right.

I met Elaine Buttermore in a picket line outside the federal building in early January, among a group of protesters rallying against President Bush's proposed troop surge. The longtime anti-war activist noticed she was getting more honks than ever from motorists. But the war's growing unpopularity gave her little comfort. "I hate being right," Buttermore said tearfully.

Nothing could have changed her moral opposition to the war. Whatever the outcome, she didn't believe in a pre-emptive strike. But once America entered the war, Buttermore wanted what all of us wanted: a swift and successful resolution, with as little loss of life as possible, and a better life for the Iraqi people.

But she had little hope that could happen. Buttermore believed she could foresee the outcome as clearly as she could close her eyes and conjure the vision of herself in the 1960s: a young mother protesting the Vietnam War, one first in the air, the other gripping a baby carriage.

"I just knew it," said the Harrison Twp. grandmother, 60. "I knew it was a mistake."

She thought of the George Santayana quote, "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Less than 30 years after the fall of Saigon, how had the nation embarked in another military quagmire? How had we once again entered a conflict in which "Support our troops" became code for "Support the war"?

Buttermore reflected, "Just as in Vietnam, we are misusing the troops once again. It seems we haven't really learned the lessons of Vietnam, and that breaks my heart."

It's a phrase very much in the air these days, "the lessons of Vietnam." It is, of course, interpreted many different ways. At a recent dinner party, it was discussed in terms of the way we react to our returning veterans. Everybody agreed that we're doing a better job, this time around, of separating our feelings about the war from our feelings about the soldiers. "Thank God, we have learned the lessons of Vietnam," somebody said.

On that point, I certainly agree. But I can't escape the oppressive feeling that the most critical lesson of Vietnam has evaded us altogether.

Never send our troops needlessly into battle. Never send them into an unprovoked war, against an enemy who has not attacked us or our allies.

"I was never against the troops in Vietnam; I was against the war," Buttermore recalled.

She feels the same way now: "The troops are doing what our leaders are telling them to do. I believe we are a really good country, but we have been profoundly misled."

Whatever our individual feelings about the war, the fourth anniversary is a time for prayer, somber reflection and thankfulness for our troops. That's what happened Friday night during a prayer vigil at Mack Memorial Church of the Brethren in Dayton. Some 80 worshippers read selections from the Koran and from Christian and Hebrew texts. The service began at 7 p.m., at the same time worshippers packed the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. "We are people of all faiths who are saddened, and would like to see end of the war," Pastor Tracy Knechel said.

There was a sense of prayerfulness, a sense it didn't matter who was right or wrong about the war.

What really matters is to bring our troops home safely, and never again to send them needlessly into harm's way.

Only then will we truly have learned the lessons of Vietnam.