As Thanksgiving approaches each year I tend to start counting my blessings. Top on my list every year is: I'm thankful I was born in America. I've traveled quite a bit. Some 45 countries to date. And every time I come home I want to kiss the ground and thank the good Lord, because no matter how messed up our federal government is (and I am one of it's staunchest critics), there is no place I'd rather live than America. That's why I've chosen to stay here and fight for repeal of the slave tax rather than expatriate to some tax haven as quite a number of other disgruntled citizens have done.

I celebrated Veteran's Day the other day. I'm a Vietnam era vet. High on my list of things to be thankful for is: I never had to serve in Nam. I volunteered twice, being young and stupid, but thank the Lord, I was turned down both times. The Army had no need for my specialty in Nam so the closest I got was Yokohama, Japan.

I was quite the war-monger back then. Joined the Army at 17. I grew up wanting to be a soldier, and what was a soldier without a war? You couldn't be an Audie Murphy or Sergeant York or Guy Gabaldin in peacetime. Besides which, I figured war was nature's way of keeping the earth's population in check.

In 1966, a major I worked for and admired a lot told me, "Vietnam's not much of a war, but it's the only war we've got, so we'd better make the most of it." He'd served one tour as a Special Forces advisor a few years earlier and had just received orders to go back for a second tour when he said that. It got to be quite a war over the next couple of years. I never heard from or of him again. I've often wondered how he faired. I've also wondered if he changed his way of thinking as I have over the years.

Norman Vincent Peale said, "Change your thoughts and you change your world."

I'm not a hawk any more. If anything, I'm a dove now. A turn-the-other-cheek, forgive-them-for-they-know-not-what-they-do sort of dove. I don't want my 24-year-old son in another Nam. Or Iraq, or Afganistan, or Kosovo, or Somalia, or anywhere else he might be killed or maimed or turned into a basket case to satisfy some politicians' urge for power. According to the VFW, the US has had military personnel assigned in 45 "foreign wars" since the end of World War II. Most of them accomplished nothing other than to keep the military-industrial complex in business.

Most of all, this Thanksgiving I'll be praying for peace - peace between America and all other nations, peace between neighbors in every neighborhood, peace between you and me. And that's where world peace starts - from the bottom up.

What is peace?

It's defined in the dictionary as "a state of calm and quiet," and "a state of concord (as between persons or governments)." It doesn't mean we are in complete agreement or even that we like each other, just that we respect each other enough to deal with each other calmly and without rancor.

It means we acknowledge that the other person's rights to life, liberty and property are just as sacred as our own, and cultural differences (no matter how foreign to our own) are not to be trifled with. The Earth is large enough to accommodate a vast number of varied societies and none should be superior to or subordinate to any other. Especially, no force should be exerted by one person or government to subordinate another or to force one's culture, religion or political philosophy on them.

If we disagree, we have the right to withdraw our support, but we do not have the right to attack preemptively on the assumption that if we do not, the other party will attack us. Especially when there is no hard evidence supporting that assumption. Peace demands that we leave the other party alone and go about our own lives calmly.

Were America to set that example for the world, we would be ten steps closer to world peace than we will ever be by making threats and issuing ultimatums or trying to set neighbor against neighbor.

If you are wondering what this has to do with taxes, just think of the cost of one battleship, one bomber, one tank, or a million men and women in uniform drawing combat pay.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Cory Layne
Editor

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