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Cause Greater by Steve Payne
 Author
says: six years after John McCain was released from a North Vietnamese
Prisoner of War Camp he discovered a radically changed America which he
summarised by saying that "Now that I'm back, I find a lot of
hand-wringing about this country. I don't buy that". But what if he
encountered a resolute, victorious nation, a "sea of crew cuts"? Please note
that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the
views of the author(s).
March 14th 1973:
on a stopover at Clark Air Base in the Philippines, US President William
Westmoreland presented lieutenant commander John McCain with a signed copy
of his favourite novel, Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls.
"The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for
and I hate very much to leave it"
In the inside cover, Westmoreland entered a handwritten quotation from
the protagonist, Robert Jordan - "The World is a fine place, and worth the
fighting for".
Sensing the historic paralell with the fascist assault on the Spanish
Republic, both Westmoreland and McCain were strongly in agreement with
Jordan's philosophy that "if we win here, we win everywhere".
Yet neither man had the insight to ask whether Hemingway, a peacenik that
moved to Cuba and later committed suicide in despair, might not be
suggesting the whole military adventure was a tragic waste of life.
Author
says
we think perhaps John McCain just likes
fighting, and Ernest Hemingway was on a self-destructive trip but not
everyone agrees! To view guest historian's comments on this post please
visit the Today
in Alternate History web site.
Other Contemporary Stories
Steve Payne
Editor of Today in
Alternate History, a Daily Updating Blog of Important Events In History
That Never Occurred Today. Follow us on
Facebook, Myspace and
Twitter.
Imagine what would be, if history had occurred a bit
differently. Who says it didn't, somewhere? These fictional news items
explore that possibility. Possibilities such as America becoming a Marxist
superpower, aliens influencing human history in the 18th century and Teddy
Roosevelt winning his 3rd term as president abound in this interesting
fictional blog.
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