Arianna Huffington: Memorial Dat Lessons From Darwin, Virginia Woolf, and "Altruistic Squirrels!"

Arianna Huffington, like the millions of Americans who will hit the road this Memorial Day, traveled to Providence, Rhode Island. In her case, it was to receive an honorary doctorate from Brown University during its commencement ceremony. Arianna is best known for her Huffington Daily Brief, but in this case, she wanted to repeat a lesson recalling the sacrifice of those who have given their lives in defense of ours, and to honor who continue to do so: However, as Advisory Team Leader in Vietnam, first near a small Montagnard village north of Kontum, and finally in Trung Lap, in the heart of Vietnam's "Iron Triangle" I witnessed too many problems related to our involvement of other nations' serious problems to feel good about my contribution! North of Kontum, I was asked to provide security for a medical mission, by guarding a helicopter which desperately had to fly to Dak To, which had been overrun by North Vietnamese enemy soldiers. Listening to the screams of the dead and dying, many of them still hoping to return to the United States, requires an extremely hard-boiled SOB. During my next assignment, in the "Iron Triangle" of Vietnam, I walked through a minefield, step by step behind a VietCong Enemy Agent. The enormous perspiration from the back of her cone-shaped hat made me realize that she had no more familiarity with the location of these deadly mines than I did. At the end of that "patrol", I pointed to the dense jungle to our left, and said: "Didi Mau", which means: "Go-go quickly"and, I never saw her face again, though my jungle combat boots still sit on a shelf in my garage. Before I left for Vietnam, my father, who was drafted into the German Army, pulled me aside into a room in our house where my mother could not listen to our conversation, told me: When I served in the German Army, I often had serious conversations with our officers, but in the end, they insisted on volunteering for the most difficult combat assignments. If you are not able to live up to their high standards, I do not want you to return to this house. Well, all of my men did live to tell their stories about Vietnam, and my father smiled at me for my devotion to their welfare!