What’s Causing Today’s Epidemic Pathology?

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Seeing daggers of hate in Americans eyes used to be a rare phenomenon. Now you can expect to see them daily, sometimes hour after hour, minute by minute. The first time I saw burning hatred, those daggers, in another person’s eyes was in early 1970 when I was finishing the last year of my undergraduate degree. The hate was directed at me, so that glare of sheer loathing stuck with me. Happily, though, a couple decades went by before the next dagger sighting. It was a different place and different eyes, yet also zeroed in on me. Hence, that occurrence was memorable as well.

Hateful eyes look very different than happy, loving eyes

It's probably not overly concerning seeing hate flashing in someone’s eyes every twenty years or so, although it’s not pleasant regardless. Today, however, observing it in other’s eyes has become routine in America. Turn on the news anytime, anywhere and you’ll see it. While the abhorrence may not be targeting you or me, rage-filled eyes are easy to detect if you pay attention. Hateful eyes look very different than happy, loving eyes. And be assured, the detestation is directed at someone or something. Eyes don’t lie. The person scowling and disgorging venom at the camera or the reporter might. So, could my experience a half-century ago help illuminate what’s causing today’s epidemic pathology? Yes, I believe it can if we consider why the daggers were hurled my way. Back in 1970, the night it first occurred, I was enjoying a beer in a local college bar. A coed next to me noticed the small American flag on the breast pocket of the coat I was wearing which led her to offer some friendly advice, smiling while doing so. She suggested that if I had any idea what war is all about, I wouldn’t be wearing an American flag. Astonishingly, since I’d returned to college the previous September, she was the third coed to have said something similar regarding the roughly one-inch plastic pin on my fatigue jacket. With the first two, I merely nodded my head, smiled, and said nothing. Warfare scholar number three got me to respond. The beer may have contributed, plus she was better looking.

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Initially attractive young lass transformed into a malicious witch

Smiling back, I mentioned having a piece of shrapnel residing in my left lung. That made me think my up close and personal experience in combat last year might give me a reasonably good idea “what war is all about.” BOOM! Her soft, glimmering eyes exploded into dagger-emitting magma and the initially attractive young lass transformed into a malicious witch. That ended her lecture on battlefield tactics for dummies as she vanished into the crowd. But why did it happen? The reality that I was drafted — didn’t volunteer to go in the Army, be in the infantry, or go to Southeast Asia — clearly didn’t matter. Neither did the fact that I damned-near died in Vietnam. Shifted a couple inches, any of the three pieces of shrapnel that hit me could have killed me. However, wearing an American flag BECAUSE I WAS A PROUD PATRIOT made me the Devil incarnate. Yes, I was a Vietnam combat vet who was proud of my service and proud of those I served with in battle. I wore the American flag to honor my Delta Company brothers still in harm’s way. It was to respect them and all others serving. As a result, I was automatically condemned for loving America and those who serve America.

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It wasn’t Vietnam that elicited the hatred back then. It was my pride in service to America that did it

For more evidence, fast-forward two decades when I was a faculty member in the medical school at a little university — fifty-plus thousand students — in Columbus, Ohio. That’s where I dodged daggers of hate the second time. It was during a relatively benign conversation with a woman from human resources. Everything was going along fine until she found out I was a Vietnam combat veteran. BOOM! I was nearly blinded by molten magma just like 1970. The daggers were indistinguishable, merely older eyes at another institution. The problem: I didn’t try to hide the truth that I served in Vietnam. I stated it unapologetically BECAUSE I WAS A PROUD PATRIOT and gratified by my combat service. As a result, once again I was Satan personified. Obviously, both my examples were Vietnam-related, but as I’ve tried to highlight, it wasn’t Vietnam that elicited the hatred back then. It was my pride in service to America that did it. Had I NOT been proud of my performance in combat and that of my Delta Company brothers — had I done something horrible or cowardly, then joined the antiwar rioters upon returning to assuage my guilt — it’s likely everything would have been fine with both individuals.

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Correcting the Record About Vietnam Veterans

Unquestionably, the only way the coed in 1970 could have thought she knew “what war is all about” would have been based on what she saw on TV or read in the newspaper about the Vietnam War. Women were not in the infantry back then, i.e., she had no firsthand knowledge. The human resource lady two decades later probably watched and read the very same things in the 1960s and ‘70s. Ergo, anyone who was unashamed of their actions in Vietnam had to be a psychopath as we were all made out to be back then. That’s all the media ever talked or wrote about. And psychopath would have been a nice description. Baby killer was used more often. But as I stated recently in ARMY Magazine, “the majority [of those who served in Vietnam] looked out for their brothers, for their allies, and for the civilian population, even knowing some of the latter might side with the Viet Cong. A minority looked out only for themselves. Those failing the test under fire undoubtedly gravitated to the antiwar movement when they returned home” (Trewyn, R.W. “Correcting the Record About Vietnam Veterans’ Service,” ARMY Magazine, 72 (11): 23-25, Nov. 2022). They are the ones who endorsed the lies about the valorous majority who fought and died honorably in Vietnam.

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So, what’s promulgating today’s epidemic pathology, rabid hatred?

So, what’s promulgating today’s epidemic pathology, rabid hatred? Revulsion of America and of those who love and honor America. If you’re a freedom-loving patriot and you let it show, you can pretty well count on being a focus of daggers of hate in American eyes. But don’t back down. They are anti-America Americans. You’re on the side of good … protecting America, the Constitution, liberty and freedom. They’re on the side of evil … destroying them all. Tell them where they can put their daggers of hate. Then, patriotically, wave the American flag. They’ll book out quickly when you do. That technique was validated a half-century ago.