This is Floyd Wynne with THE VIEW FROM HERE   11-08-05

Yesterday was my birthday.   I’m not telling you how old I am, but let’s just say it’s past the four score mark.

                Indulge me for a moment as I look back on our world.

                When I was born the flu epidemic was sweeping the nation, and according to reports it claimed some 20 million people.    Today we not only have the threat of another flu epidemic, but also what they call the bird flu which apparently is just about as deadly….so little has changed here.

                When I was born our young men were involved in a war against Germany on the European Continent.  The Armistice as it was called was signed when I was but four days old.  We suffered huge losses on that foreign front.   Today our young men and now young women are involved in a deadly conflict with the insurgents in Iraq.  We have suffered over 2000 casualties there in a nation struggling toward Democracy.  Little seems to have changed over the intervening years.

                The Twentieth Century has been one of numerous wars by our nation.

Along with millions of others I served in the second World War, again against foes like Germany and Japan.  Again our casualties were in the millions.  From the ruins of that war came the United Nations….formed to keep the peace of the world.  It was the successor to the League of Nations…formed to keep the peace after World War I. 

                Then came what I call the smaller wars……the struggle with the Soviet Union and the Berlin Airlift.   Then came Korea….then came Vietnam…then came Somali….the incidents in Panama and Grenada….the first desert war with Iraq in Kuwait….then the current struggle to overthrow Sadaam Hussein.

                The cost of defending and supporting freedom around the globe has been heavy indeed on the young warriors of this nation.  Is it worth it?  Yes, indeed, is my answer.

                Yet as I look back those many years that I’ve traveled thus far…through depressions, recessions, elections….America is still a wonderful country.  Our freedoms remain the envy of the world….but our actions, at times, is not well understood by our friends who now perhaps regard us as the bully of the world since we remain the sole superpower on the globe.

                  One thought comes through loud and clear……we cannot change the world by ourselves.  We may want the other nations of the world to have the same brand of freedoms that we do, but we can’t impose our freedoms on them….that they must do themselves.

                One other thought also is paramount…..the United Nations must be reorganized if it is ever to fulfill its’ most important mission….keeping the peace of the world.  That may mean that we have to make some concessions to empower the UN to do just that.   The current five power veto must also be altered or eliminated.

                We also should be bringing our troops home from places like Japan, Germany and South Korea.   When a government is fully organized in Iraq we should gradually withdraw our troops there also.

                Yes it’s also obvious that we must always be vigilant to defend our nation and its’ freedoms against all enemies, but we must find others ways than wars to advance those same freedoms around the world.

                Just a few thoughts as an old American dinosaur takes a backward look over the last four score and more years.

                This is Floyd Wynne and that’s THE VIEW FROM HERE.