The Tory Anarchist

Christopher Buckley’s 1983 Esquire essay on his ambiguous feelings about not going to Vietnam — referenced by R.J. Stove in this comment thread — is included in Buckley’s splendid collection Wry Martinis. The book also contains a follow-up, “Incoming,” written in the Washington Post and responding to the avalanche of mail Buckley received about the Esquire piece. This passage from the second article particularly struck me:

Then came two letters from the same person. The first is dated September 10 and explains that after years of malaise over having been in the Special Forces in the late ’60s but not having gone to Vietnam, he is volunteering, at age thirty-six, for the Airborne Rangers.

The second letter is dated November 15. It begins, “Whatever guilt I might have felt by my not participating in the Vietnam War has all been erased by recent adventures in Grenada. … Unfortunately, we lost three killed and six seriously wounded in three helicopter crashes on our last raid before pulling out.” It ends, “Please continue doing whatever you can to further the cause of Vietnam vets.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 2nd, 2008 at 11:06 pm and is filed under War. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.