Full Circle

Today while making my Sunday coffee run I had an interesting observation. Starbucks inherently will attract its morning groupies who like to congregate and chat it up about anything and everything. This morning when I entered the Starbucks in Fairfax Virginia, there were several groups formed up throughout the shop. In one corner there we 7 old soldiers talking trading war stories and yucking it up. They were loud and having a good time talking about their personal war stories that always seem to have a funny twist at the end. I would imagine those stories get pretty well honed after being told over and over. Interestingly, not far from this group in the other corner of the Starbucks were a group of older Vietnamese men. They two were talking loudly and laughing loudly together. So here we have two groups of men, from the same generation, sharing the same simple enjoyment of sipping some coffee and have a laugh or two. However what makes this different is that its more than likely that these two group of men were on the same battlefield during the Vietnam war at one time or another over its 10 year span.
I wonder what would have happened if someone put the group together and interpreted their stories to compare. I get the feeling that there would be a mutual respect for each other even though they were mortal enemies at one time. I hope that all the death and destruction from that war was not futile and that nobody died in vein, but sometimes I may over simplify things and wonder what the point was of that entire war to begin with. I have been exposed to many Vietnam Veterans during my 20 year military career and my Army leaders were mostly war veterans from that era. What I observed was there was allot of disgust and wonderment from the soldiers themselves. There was also allot of self medicating going on. The war was a sad time but it seems were all friends in the end.
Make mine a Vinte Americano please !!