"Victor Manta" wrote in message
...
I have seen by chance in Scott the stamp 1525, issued March 11th, 1974,
and
dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Veterans of Foreign Wars
organization.
Quite interesting, because the only non-foreign US American war that I can
remember was the Civil (Secession, Rebellion) War, one that happened about
150 years ago. Even if it looks as a long time ago, actually this war was
not so old for an organization that was probably created in 1899.
Victor Manta
In the category of "foreign wars" they define any military action,
occupation or service outside of the United States territory. Perhaps the
first "foreign war" of the United States was the war with the Barbary
pirates in 1805. Marines took part in this miltary action which today is
evident in the "to the shores of Tripoli" line in the Marine Corps hymn. So
the United States' first "foreign war" was 74 years before the founding of
the VFW.
The VFW was probably founded as an organization for the veterans of the
then recently concluded Spanish-American War where units served in
Philippines, Guam and Cuba.
Dave
Stretching the point somewhat, and not very much if you happen to be a
native American, the U.S. Army engaged in "foreign wars" when it set about
exterminating several Indian tribes on land that the Indians "owned" in the
sense they had always had full freedom of movement upon it, notwithstanding
the ongoing conflicts between various Indian tribes.
In signing treaties with Indians, the American government certainly appeared
to acknowledge the existence of aboriginal nations. But of course, most of
the treaties were resulted from shameful pretense, and the Indians were
doomed from the start, despite Custer's Last Stand. (I visited the site of
the Battle of the Little Bighorn a few years ago. It's an incredibly moving
place. It's not too hard to imagine yourself there on that sunny morning,
with death a near certainty for the U.S. troopers. Small markers point out
the exact spots where many individual Indians and soldiers died. Altogether
it's a quiet, beautiful, and eerie place.)
I recently watched a documentary about the last of the Indian resistance and
was reminded that it seemed very much like a preview of the Second World War
when the Germans were exterminating Jews in Eastern Europe. There's not much
difference between Lidice, where Germans destroyed an entire Czech
community, and the "Battle" of Wounded Knee, where Americans virtually
murdered hundreds of natives, most of them women and children who were ill
and trying to seek aid from the soldiers.
Dave mentioned the Spanish American War. I learned only a couple of years
ago that I grew up and often played near the grave of an ancestor who served
in the Philippines, and died as a resut of disease contracted there. I have
recently published a web page which mentions this, as well as the Indian
Wars, and a chocolate soda. Curious? Go to
http://www.ingraham.ca/bob/fortbayard.html.
There was a sobering precursor to My Lai Massacre of the Vietnam War during
the Spanish American War. From *The First Casualty* by Phillip Knightly:
"Wholesale and indiscriminate killing by American troops had depopulated
large sections of the country. There were complaints that the troops had on
one occasion been ordered to 'kill everything over ten years old' and that
the Twentieth Kansas had swept through a town of 17,000 inhabitants leaving
not one native alive." At the time, William Randolph Hearst's *New York
Journal* editorialized: "The weak must go to the wall and stay there...
We'll rule in Asia as we rule at home. We shall establish in Asia a branch
agent of the true American movement towards liberty."
Bob Ingraham
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