Judging the war from the VFW

A year ago, you might find an aging vet belly-up to the bar and talking about any number of things: How will the Cardinals do this year? Should I buy an SUV or pickup? If that's the missus, tell her I'm not here.

At VFW Post 3838 in Cape Girardeau the beer is still flowing, but these days the talk is all about the war. And, considering that VFW stands for Veterans of Foreign War, these folks know a thing or three about that.

As CNN drones on a big-screen TV in the background, men who still consider themselves soldiers talk about Saddam (string him up), President Bush (doing the right thing) and share stories from their days in uniform and sympathize as only they can with the soldiers fighting in the United States' most recent conflict.

"I can't watch television too much. It brings back too many memories," said Fletcher Chasteen, the 78-year-old VFW post commander who served in the South Pacific during World War II.

Getting nightmares

As he looked at the big-screen Thursday night at the post on Kingshighway, Chasteen said the around-the-clock television coverage has given him nightmares.

Naturally, they have caused the images to come flooding back from his three-year Navy stint on the USS Allendale. The images of war -- ground combat and getting shelled on his ship -- have always haunted him, he said, but now he wakes up wide-eyed in the middle of the night.

"You don't get over that too easy," he said.

But Chasteen is very much behind Bush and Operation Iraqi Freedom, even though he wishes war could be avoided.

"But I think we had to do it," he said. "I'd like to see it end quick."

Lane Cunningham, 68, was in the Korean War as an Army soldier who worked with guided missiles. Unlike Chasteen, he has found himself drawn to the television.

Ask him what he thinks should happen to Saddam, he laughs quietly.

"Hang him," he said, turning serious. "It's been unfortunate the way he treats his people."

Les Eagle, 82, fought in one of the last big battles of World War II, the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. He remembers it well. It started on Easter Sunday and he operated a machine gun.

Eagle said that if America didn't take the fight to Saddam now, he would bring it to us later.

"We don't want him to hit us over here," he said in between chugs of a beer. "Same with the second World War. I went in to get travel, adventure and an education. I got it, but not in the way I thought."

Someone's opinion

Rodger Brown is sitting a few chairs down, sipping on an ice-cold Miller Genuine Draft, which are only $1 during happy hour. He was an aircraft mechanic serving in Cam Ranh Bay in 1968.

"You want somebody with an opinion? I've got one," he called out.

As a Vietnam veteran, Brown is especially disappointed with protesters.

"Those of us in Vietnam remember coming home and getting spit on," he said. "Protesters are causing our society as a whole to turn against those of us who were just doing our job. It's happening again."

Brown doesn't think Saddam should be killed, but only because he said that would be too easy.

"I'd like to see him imprisoned in his own country in a prison with a window so he has to watch how his country prospers without him," Brown said. "That way he can suffer every day."

Brown said he is thankful he has his friends at the post to talk to about the war in Iraq, though it hasn't drawn them closer.

"We were pretty much a tight group to begin with," he said.

Brown wraps up the conversation by pointing to a sign that greets people as they come into the VFW: "It isn't the price you pay to be a member, it's the price you paid to become eligible."

"Those people are paying their price right now," he said. "More people should realize that."

smoyers@semissourian.com

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