This fall, most Americans, it seemed, were watching Ken Burns’ telling of the Vietnam War saga. For those of us who had lived through the original days of that national psychopathology, viewing it on PBS was almost unbearably painful.

But, I reasoned, there are younger people, and older ones as well, who do not know the history of the war and need to absorb its lessons.

They would learn, I thought, that presidents would lie, to themselves as well as to the American people. That intelligent and caring people could be so intoxicated by the draughts of nationalism that they would be willing to die, on foreign soil, for the ridiculous “domino theory” – and willing, moreover, to slaughter and torture poor villagers because they were “communists” – all for the wealthy capitalists who profited by the military-industrial complex of our empire.

Silly me.

Americans, it seems, have learned no such things. Instead, all this fall, as athletes have used the playing of the national anthem, with its militaristic and racist lyrics, to focus attention on our society’s inequalities, the mainstream response has been to celebrate and glorify our military might.

Football fields are made into giant flags; warplanes thunder overhead; Armistice Day, once a day to end all wars, has become Veterans Day, to remember their service to our empire. Militarism has become our new national religion.

Half – at least – of our tax money goes to the Pentagon, while schools crumble and children go hungry.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m sure many will. I’m not anti-vet. On the contrary, I feel compassion for those who have lost limbs and lives and brothers so that American war industries can prosper.

I just don’t think that our 800 bases in 70 countries make us any safer.

And I’m sure that our drone strikes do not make us more beloved.

DICK CONWAY, Port Townsend