Note To Joe Biden: Thanks. I Needed That.

It feels like a new world. Joe Biden outed himself.

He stood in front of a schizophrenic Congress Thursday night and told off his naysayers and those who would already have buried him, dazzling them with both his presence and delivery. His State of the Union Address last night was an eloquent call to battle.

It revealed a man who's grown in the job, one who's tired of the nonsense directed at him and his administration. From the very first sentence, it projected a ferociousness heretofore leashed.

A man too old for this enormous, all-encompassing job would not have been able to do what he did in the way he did it. He is spoiling for a fight. More, he wants his supporters to know it and join him.

Given the opportunity, once a year--if you remember, some of this attitude was a repeat of 2023's address--to face his opponents and detractors, he gladly welcomed the chance to take it on. He threw some of their comments right back at them, then, when they groaned, dared them to refute him.

Above all, Biden projects the Nice Guy image. He tries hard to put the best face on darn near everything. Republicans have taken full advantage, taunting him and his friends, knowing that their bullying will carry them through to victory in November and drag the country into a vengeful ditch beyond.

Until last night. He proved that when pushed hard enough and long enough, he has plenty of energy and nerve to push back. In doing so, he certainly provided me with additional spine. I've no doubt he did so for millions of others.

Until last night, I had concluded that voting for him was the maximum that I could and should do. I never thought that I could be sufficiently energized to do any work for him. He would lose anyhow, and the country would be driven off the cliff by the awful forces that Republicans have kowtowed to.

Now, I'm not sure. His job performance has certainly been good, given the forces arrayed against him. He was handed a world no longer sure of American significance, largely thanks to his predecessor, who simply doesn't care about that.

But now I've been shaken awake. I'm not sure what I'm going to do but I'm going to do something. The fate of Western civilization hangs in the balance. America is the spoke of that wheel. The disaster that awaits failure, which might still happen, won't because I sat and watched.

Okay, he's old. So is his opponent. But old with integrity sure beats old without it. And his bearing, his presence, suggested one who is clearly in command, not one who stumbles and withers beneath the pressure.

It was Mike Johnson, fill-in Speaker of the House, who looked dithered last night. He even applauded some of Biden's lines. I'm sure he'll hear about that.

Biden has changed the complexion of the whole campaign, too. He will probably have to resort to defiant blasts again and again now. Once will not be enough. 

I wonder: Will this lead to a debate? Or will it cancel out the possibilities? Ex- loves to prey on presumed weakness. But Biden took that image away last night. Before, I cringed. Now, if this is the kind of president we now have, I'm almost wishing for it. Ex- will probably run away from it now. He will run away from someone he used to dismiss with cheap shots.

Biden is decent, but firm. Friendly, but principled. I'll take it. In fact, assuming he stays healthy, I'll gladly take four more years of it. The taunts of "sleepy Joe" will no doubt continue, but they will be empty and pointless.

Substance carries only so much for so long in American politics. It must be balanced with appearances designed to project competence and confidence. Joe Biden put that out there last night. Instead of breathing a sigh of relief, I found myself energized and yelling at the TV screen in glee.

State of the Union addresses are largely filled with bromides and policy statements. There were a few in there, too. But instead of declaring himself above the fray, Biden rolled up his sleeves and joined it, transmitting his willingness and talent for a political tussle, a crusade for the maintenance of democracy itself. He even got after the Supreme Court for its abrogation of women's choice.

Yes, he stepped across an ethical line. But his opponent knows none. He sent out notice: I'm ready. Come and get it.

Still eight months to do, so plenty can happen. But now I'm engaged. I'm no longer just watching with descending enthusiasm. I'm ready to join the battle.

Thanks, Joe. I needed that.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

This Book Is the Finish, the Last Word, on the Vietnam War

If you're a baby boomer, hell even if you aren't, you need to read a book I've just finished. Because if you don't, you aren't finished with the Vietnam War yet.

Nope. Not by a mile.

Bet you haven't thought about it for a while, have you? Understandable.

The country brushed it under the rug. Or we tried to.

We never did. Not by another mile. It haunts us still. It always will.

It began our descent from world dominance. Some tried to say we bounced back from it at some point. We didn't. We couldn't. We kept trying to do make-up calls, and everybody knows what happens then.

There are about as many books about soldiers in Vietnam as there are plantations there. Lots. They say the same thing: It was about as fucked up as anything anyone had ever seen. Horrible, too, as war always is. Time goes on and another vet-turned-writer tries to tell people that the whole thing was a mess from the get-go, and what the hell did anybody expect?

I read a bunch of them. I had to teach it where I worked, and I did my best. No one, though, quite nailed the total experience.

Until now. Novelist Kristin Hannah has written the tour de force of Vietnam books, called The Women. It's probably the ultimate irony that the total, encompassing story of that awful experience has to be told by a female who was never there, about females who were.

She takes you through the peak of the war, from 1967-69, when hope and casualties were at their highest. Perhaps most importantly, she takes you back home after the service of those who gave of themselves, too--the nurses--and details the fictitious, and not so fictitious, experiences of trying to "get over" the experience, as if one ever could.

She does it through the eyes of Frankie McGrath, a good Catholic girl who eventually finds that all she's ever been taught to stand for has dissolved into bitterness, chaos, paranoia, regret and the all-consuming anger. She is left with absolutely nothing to hang onto because not even the male vets who came back acknowledge her very existence, not to mention her service on their behalf. Plenty of them never knew how she and other nurses helped wounded and dying comrades because they were lucky to get away without serious wounds.

She is failed by the military system, by a government she trusts, by a lover she adores, by the health care system, and by her parents, who swell up with pride with the memory of their son, killed in Vietnam, yet can't bring themselves to be proud of their daughter, who watched many of her brother's comrades die as well. The totality of it all proves too much to bear. In Vietnam, she becomes a all-enduring rock of Gibraltar, depended upon and admired by many. Back in The World, she dissolves into a complete wreck. Two pals she makes in Vietnam are all she has to buttress whatever sanity she has left.

But reading this leads one to get it: The nightmares. The PTSD. The feeling of inhumanness, of no longer fitting in anywhere. The lack of credit paid for what she had a right to sincerely believe was devoted, courageous service to her country, created a burden that left her alone--the one status that she couldn't maintain, yet couldn't find a remedy for. The men weren't the only ones who carried all that around.

A fraternity brother, now a retired psychiatrist, told me back in the '90s that he was still treating men who were roaming the streets of Chicago with weapons, believing that Victor Charlie was still lurking nearby. I thought that to be on the fringes of craziness. Now I wonder how many others couldn't shake that off, either. But now I know why, too.

There is recompense of a sort, symbolically centered on the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Wall in 1982. More than 58,000 names are on it, including eight nurses. What people forget is that one of the additional statues, built a few hundred feet behind the wall, depicts a nurse treating a wounded soldier. I never totally understood that until reading this book. Now I know that that statue completes the wall, gives it a wholistic meaning. And that it is absolutely necessary.

If you've never been there, you ought to go. There are several other important monuments nearby and easily within walking distance, too. But that one will undeniably catch your eye. People still bring flowers and memorabilia that they drop beneath the name of someone who never came back. You don't need to be a history teacher like me to be drawn to it. You just need to be an American.

The Vietnam War encompassed the zenith and beginning of the downfall of the United States as a force for good versus evil in the world. We learned that life and war aren't so simple. We are learning still, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Ukraine, in Gaza. 

Meanwhile, read The Women. It describes an era we'd love to forget, but can't and shouldn't.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark