Who You Are is What You Were When.
We all have events in our lives that cumulatively shape us.
Some of them are very local, some regional, some global. What does that have to do with ANYTHING?

I have a point that I intend to make, but the inspiration for this comes from a documentary i watched last evening that I know will not be on the Rumsfeld Christmas Stocking Stuffer list for 2006.
"Sir, No Sir" is a powerful journey into the real story behind the GI revolt of the Viet Nam War.
I was six years old when the Americans started "advising" in Indochina as the area was known back then. It meant nothing to me.
By the time I was six I had a few good memories already shaping me - swimming a Roger's Creek with my sisters, Creme Soda at Grandma's house, building my first nail gun with the older boys on the street helping me.
I had a few odd memories - watching my older brother climb through our shared bedroom window at about 4 am, finding out I could move the panel van by repeatedly pressing the starter button, watching a young man on the way home from school change records on his front porch ith his feet (he was a victim of thalidamide).
I even had a few creepy ones - seeing the man next door on Beaver Creek chop the head off a chicken just as the kids were getting off the bus in front of his house, or feeling incredibly conflicted and squeamish when a particular uncle or aunt wanted to kiss me.
We all have memories.

And we are all shaped by memories.

But i wondered while watching the movie if the fifteen year old of today will be as affected by Iraq or Afghanistan as I was by Viet Nam.
The protest movement taught me that it was okay to oppose authority and ask hard questions. (that belief has not always helped me I must admit)
The protest movement shaped our thinking, our music, our art, our politics.
Coffee Houses, so important to the GI, became the social gathering place for free thinking and (at times) tolerable music. My sister invited me to come. And no, that is not a picture of me and my friends at the New West Coffee House in 1970. (it's not Barry Maguire, either)
Hear Barry Maguire's
"Eve of Destruction."http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNuUB7qapbQ

Would I be the who I seem to have become had i not lived in Canada during the time of the Viet Nam War? Of course not.
And this is not a trippy tale about how cool the Baby boomers are or were or whatever....
It's simply a question about the effect on our teen generation of the latest war that the neighbours to the south, and to a certain extent Canada, are now involved in. Did the Russian kids who lived through their Afghanistan learn to question their leaders? How did Afghanistan affect them?

Odd to think that if the Russians couldn't bring about change to that part of the world who are we to think we can? Has Canada stopped peace keeping and started peace making?