Anyone who's honest about military service and not puffed up about it will simply say that it boils down to knowing about the chance of random death at a young age. You punched your ticket and got home in one piece. Thanks for the memories.

It really doesn't matter what war (for me, Vietnam, 1967-68, including Tet), what rank, or what grandiose story you want to tell; that kind of flashback, and wondering how you wound up in such a pickle, is what you "carry" for the rest of your life. Trust me, you don't really think about it in heroic terms for very long.

So, at any rate, in the context of the 1960s, listening today to a Rush Limbaugh, or a Chris Matthews, or a Dick Cheney, does grate on my ears to say the least. After what went down during Vietnam, Iraq, for many veterans of Vietnam especially, is very hard gruel to swallow.

Vietnam is also a dark hole in terms of its propaganda value, especially since Iraq is ... ahem, not going well. Obviously, raving pundits are not helping (are they over the top or what?); but I must say, they are amusing in a perverse way, even if often intolerable.

I use a veterans hospital in an eastern state and I noticed a funny thing recently. In the halls of the hospital there appeared over several months posters announcing a visit by Patricia Neal and Paula Prentiss, actors who appeared with John Wayne (the Duke) in Otto Preminger's film, "In Harm's Way." I'm sure this event meant something to men and women of a certain age who get VA care (the film was about naval action in the Pacific during World War II). Leaving aside the fact that Wayne, a durable symbol of the post-war America martial spirit, never served himself, I wondered why the VA couldn't find an updated motivational tool for the current conflict. But then, as pundits like Matthews and Limbaugh can only speak about Vietnam in theory, so the government today cannot easily use Vietnam as a glorious narrative to make the case about yet another "noble cause," the Gipper notwithstanding.

Go figure.

In the blur of reading blogs (could be a bad habit, but it's better than fretting over the future of Katie Couric or worrying about the macho cred of Chris Matthews), I note a recent writer's take on today's role reversals between pols and generals, based on Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" (sorry, I can't recall the source right now).

In the film, as B-52s suddenly begin flying a rogue mission to Moscow, the generals start running amok. One barricades himself in his SAC headquarters and mutters about the enemy wanting his "precious bodily fluids," Another, while basically saying "let's go for it, Mr. President" (I'm not saying we won't get our hair mussed up!), waxes casually about a few hundred million or so dead on "our side" after a reprisal for our destruction of the Commie capital (led by the bomber commander who rides the big one down).

The pols in the command post, led by the balding, bookish-looking president, scold the generals over their "error" in targeting while the president consoles his opposite number via the "red phone."

"It's a dreadful mistake, Dimitri; we're trying to get them on the radio now! But they're using some secret decoder rings or something."

Bush is running the show here, no matter how detached or slow-witted his supporters have tried to portray him, and the generals obviously weren't ready for the mission. Some didn't like the smell of it. Those who dissented (Shinseki, Taguba,) were shown the door.

However, leaving all that aside - as in a "water's over the dam" aside - I want to know what the nation is prepared to do to make it right with those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan (re: Washington Post reporting on vets health care)?

My apologies to Joan Walsh and Salon for my oversight in previous remarks on "Dr. Stranglove," Bush's responsibility for the war, and the nation's obligations to veterans (that's the bee in my bonnet).

I realize Salon rightly claims credit for reporting on disturbing gaps in the treatment of veterans, as does the Washington Post. I was humming along with my little riff and mentioned the Post, thinking only of their big spread on vets' care yesterday.

By the way, in answer to my query to Anne Hull on the status of reform legislation on the VA disability issue, she said Sen. Levin has bipartisan support for a new bill on that issue, which he filed last week.

Check it out, Joan.

Thank you.

Ever since the start of the "Reagan Revolution," the modern push from the right to privatize everything - from fire services, to dog pounds, to Social Security, to American corporate mercenary forces in Iraq, to veterans outpatient care - has been unrelenting.

It's now pointless to argue left-versus-right as we observe the vice president's work in hiding everything he does (while saying he's now outside accepted constitutional rules of checks and balances); as we see the establishment media diddle on the implications of a redefinition of the office of the vice president; and as we watch Congressional leaders do baby steps and issuing challenging peeps about this unprecedented power grab.

Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex, the correlative arguments about the fifty-year rise of parallel (and secret) government, the precedent of Vietnam seemingly repeated in Iraq, and the issue of privatization are all joined at one intersection.

The ramp leading on to the road to tyranny, like the Twilight Zone, is the next stop.