The so called “Red Scare” during the Cold War of the 1950s was a period of intense anti-communist paranoia in the United States, fueled by the fear that it would spread from the Soviet Union and infiltrate American society. By the time of President John F. Kennedy’s accession to office in1961, the suspicions had morphed into potential threats growing in Southeast Asia.

As a precaution, Kennedy sent military “advisors” to South Vietnam, and approved a CIA executed coup d’état of the government just weeks before his assassination in November of 1963.

I was in my early 20s during the progression of what became the actual Vietnam War. It was my “coming of age” season, so to speak. I was drafted in 1969, but because of a 4-F classification from the U.S. Selective Service System, I never served. But tragically I personally knew several young men who went into the jungles of hell and came home in body bags.

One such valiant warrior was Phillip “Greg” Wigton. I met him during a difficult time in my life, after abruptly leaving the seminary and starting classes at Creighton University. He was a friend, always smiling and upbeat, and kind. He was 22 when he fell in battle as a US Marine Corps Lance Corporal at Quang Tri. I think about him from time to time and can’t wait to hug him in heaven.

Sometimes I think I’d like to drag those politicians responsible for that horror out of their graves – like President Lyndon B. Johnson, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff – and force them to view the bodies or body parts of the over 58,000 members of the armed services who died or were missing as a result of one of history’s most unnecessary wars.

While we’re at it, let’s have them look at each and every one of the innocent women and children we burned to death with napalm. Have you seen the 1972 photo officially titled “The Terror of War” that shocked the world? It captures the moment when 9-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc fled naked, her arms outstretched, after South Vietnamese bomber planes mistakenly targeted her village. Her clothes were burned off.

Kennedy’s raison d’être (the French were in control of the country until 1954) for the escalation of hostilities against the Viet Cong was in part from Cold War-era fears about the “domino theory.” If communism took hold in Vietnam, it could topple “democracies” throughout the whole of Southeast Asia, it was thought. After all the bloodshed on both sides, in 1975 Saigon fell anyway.

Now it has come overtly to our own soil. Today we have a Communist mayor-elect (voted in by 51% of the people) in New York City. How ironic.

Because Zorhan Mamdani is not a natural-born citizen, per Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution, he cannot qualify as a candidate for President of the United States. Too bad. I think he would give pretty boy Gavin Newsom and socially and politically retarded ex-VP Harris a run for their money, literally.

For more of my thoughts, read my February 10, 2015 post, War. What is it good for?