The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam

by Max Boot

I am no longer contented with just knowing you love me and being with you now and then. I want more. I want to have the right to be with you for always, to have security and peace and happiness. You need me too. You will be needing more as time goes on, when there will be no more countries to save, no more wars to be won, no more troubles to shoot. Without us together, your life will just be one long, continuous work—empty in the end. There won’t be anyone to nag you or tease you or jump you or tell you what a stinker you are getting to be. My fight isn’t against your work or your devotion to it. (I remember, though, that one of your real friends did say that you put so much in your work because you have nothing else in this world to look forward to. I remember too how this saddens me.) My fight is against what you think is your moral obligations to your wife and children. You seem to have forgotten a moral obligation to yourself too, and to both of us. Years ago, there was no doubt your family had first claim on you. But things are changed now. You have given your family (people who see you once or maybe twice a year) all that is due them—the prestige and protection of your name, a social standing in the community due to your position, and all the material comforts they need. They have enjoyed all these things while you were thousands of miles away from them, not just for a few days but for a number of years! Obviously they can get along fine without you. They can’t miss ...