My brother John is a doctor of chiropractic. He is convinced that he was put on this earth to get people healthy—one spine at a time! And to that end, he is a zealous worker and advocate for sensible diet and lifestyle choices.
OK, so he knows his mission on this Earth. While recently at his office in Furlong, Pennsylvania, I asked him just what he thought were my reasons for being here. I mean, what’s my mission here on Earth?
He said that I was here to tell people the truth—but in an almost evangelical way. He said that I was to use my writing ability to bring people into the light, as it were. To help the scales fall from their eyes.
He thinks people have been spoon-fed a way of life founded on self-gratification. It’s fed to them through the entertainment industry and through the news media.
This is nothing new to me; I’ve essentially known this for decades. It’s now culturally popular to believe that today’s self-aggrandizement is hip, moral, and if you feel or do otherwise, you just may be bordering on committing a hate-crime.
But this is the first time someone has declared to me that it’s my task to start helping people open their eyes.
So Dr. John has proclaimed me the eye-opener for our country. Well, at least an eye-opener. I have to really bear-down and start exposing untruths. Start debunking some commonly-held dogma.
I’ll start with Oliver Stone, the acclaimed Hollywood director that came into his own after making the movie, “Platoon” back in 1986, for which he won an Academy Award as best director.
Many young people (who would otherwise know nothing about the Vietnam War), take the movie “Platoon” to be gospel in its depiction of the depravity of our army. They in effect, believe Stone, who served in the outfit portrayed—that of B Company of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Infantry Division.
There’s one problem: Stone made it up. When his former commanding officer, Colonel Robert Hemphill, saw the movie, he contacted Stone and asked him why he portrayed events in the movie that never, in fact, took place. Stone gave a terse answer to his former colonel—he said he used artistic license. That was his excuse!
And isn’t that what we’re seeing being advocated today by the industry: a licentious lifestyle?
Most of the soldiers, sailors, guardsmen, airmen, and marines who served in Vietnam did so honorably. Perhaps even Oliver Stone did. Too bad he didn’t continue to act honorably in his post-military career.
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