Well, so much for the egg rolls...

Several days ago I ran into a local Chinese restaurant to place an order to go... it's a restaurant with a bar and of course a TV... as I was waiting for my order I saw Fox News was on in the bar and some blonde Fox chick was skewing the news as usual. There were 3 men in the bar and I noticed they stopped talking and started to listen to the Fox blonde blather on... I couldn't hear what she was saying but I could hear the men and one of them in particular who said "that bitch Hillary."

That really frosted me... so I walked right up to the bar and peered at the television screen for about a minute and as I did the men fell silent, watching me. Then I turned and said to them: "This damn Fox News... they have no shame. I never listen to them without hearing at least one lie about something."

DEAD SILENCE.

The more inebriated of the 3 (but not so drunk he was incoherent or falling down) said under his breath "fucking liberals..." and the others laughed.

I turned and looked at him and asked, "What did you just say?"

He sneered at me for a second and then said to his buddies "fucking liberals... where were they when we were in 'Nam, huh? Smoking dope in Canada..." and the others sort of did a "yeah atta' boy."

I never advise wading into danger or provoking a fight but honest to God something sort of clicked in me and as I looked at those 3 very average men, probably all 3 of whom would kindly stop and help me dig my car out of a ditch in a blizzard, it hit me: Those guys are my PEERS. We grew up together. Maybe not literally but we're close in age and share many, if not all, of the same American cultural experiences.

How did we get to where we now stood, in our 60's, sneering at each other with so much contempt and misunderstanding?

The idea that I didn't care about him or all of the other kids who served in 'Nam just broke my heart but it also infuriated me.

I cannot begin to count the letters I wrote to so many kids with names like Mike, Steve, Chris, Kirk, and Bob -- kids from my Northside Chicago neighborhood -- who served in that goddamn idiotic war... or how many times I baked chocolate chip cookies and packed them in popcorn and sent them overseas... or how many times I got into trouble at my Catholic girls' high school for writing a letter in a class or study hall when I should have been focused on school work. How many times did I cry myself to sleep? How many times did I watch, grim-faced, as Dan Rather spoke to America from some godforsaken rice paddy and told us all the ugly truth? As a freshman I wrote to the older brothers of friends... over time, over four years... I began to write to a boy I loved... dearly, dearly loved.

But most of all I cannot explain what it was like to be on the military side of Chicago's O'Hare International Airport as the flag draped casket of a 19 year old boy came out of the belly of a cargo plane... and the years after... all the years after... 

"My country: love it or leave it" was often said in those days... but I remember saying "NO! I'm not leaving! I love my country and that is why I HATE this... " (or that...). I have always understood that patriotism is treasonous when it is blind because it tears away at the fabric of a nation like acid on cloth... patriotism must be an embrace of responsibility, a demand for what is just... it can be nothing less or it fails.

And as I stood there waiting for shrimp egg foo yung and two egg rolls I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that those 3 angry men would not harm me.

You may say it was naive but it's not: If you had been there, you would have seen what I saw -- just some old guys who once were young guys... guys who received chocolate chip cookies packed in popcorn by sweet young things like I once was... so long ago.

Oh we were all such nice kids then... they were handsome and brave and girls like me were sweet and naive... oh God that was so long -- so very long -- ago. 

I spoke softly but firmly:

"I want to tell you something, OK? When you were in Vietnam people like me, and our very intelligent liberal leaders like McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy, were doing everything possible to get you home, preferably in one piece -- you know, before your legs or balls were blown to bits in a damn muddy rice paddy? You get that right?"

They were silent; I continued: "Frickin'-A you get it. Frickin-A."

The silence had grown most uncomfortable.

"You hate liberals? Well, I hate old men who send young men off to senseless goddamn wars... wars that kill boys like the one I once loved so dearly... yeah, frickin'-A right I do. And now look at you: You're here today and probably collecting VA benefits or Social Security because of the fucking liberals. Wow. What terrible people we are. Fucking liberals. Liberals who didn't want you to die and now don't want you to starve. Fucking liberals."

Then I saw a totally horrified-looking little Oriental lady holding my brown paper bag with my order in it.... (and I think the people who run this place are actually all Vietnamese, not Chinese)... seriously, the poor dear looked stricken.

The silence was deafening... another Oriental, a man, came out from the sliding doors behind the bar; he wore a dirty apron and held a humongous cleaver... he looked more puzzled than stricken... and he and the woman holding the bag with my dinner in it said something to each other in what I think was Vietnamese while the 3 American men averted their eyes.

I took my order and said "thank you" to the lady and then to the 3 angry American men I made it a point to say "Merry Christmas, guys. Glad you made it home."

But as I walked out the door I heard one of the men snarl "fucking liberal bitch" one more time -- only this time the other two didn't laugh.

Two out of three: Well, that's a start I guess.

I got into the car, steamed up with Shadow's panting hot breath on a freezing cold night, and said to him as we drove away: "Shad, the good news is I think we can recover the high ground one day... but the bad news, pal, is I don't know where the hell we're going to get egg rolls anymore..."