Better late than never. Rumsfeld, Bush and Cheney have a lot to learn from Robert S. McNamara.
Times obituary. Chomsky on McNamara.
They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Comment posted on the Times site, from Bill Baldwin Jr. of Los Angeles:
It is "unfortunate" that three friends of mine, among a group of 58,000 other Americans of my generation, can’t shed their "let's move on" tears of forgiveness for the late Sec. of Defense, Robert S. McNamara, but they're dead. Bernard, the blond surfer looking Navy helicopter pilot, who on his second tour of duty in Vietnam, wouldn’t leave eight wounded Army guys trapped in a firefight and died along with them trying to fly out of the hot zone; John, the son of a minister in Santa Barbara, trained as a broadcast specialist as I was in 1968, but was pressed into walking patrol his first week in country and came home in a box before Mayor Daily ever hosted that friendly summer gathering of folks in Chicago; and Keith, a fellow rock & roll playing buddy from the mail room at Disney, I don’t know how he “bought the farm” down in McNamara’s little dust up, just that he never got a chance to wear pressed jeans while doing hustle to “Disco Inferno”.
...
But please feel free to label my response here as “mean spirited” or whatever the current buzz words slogan might be you have received as approved by Move On or Twittered from your personal empowerment group, because words, including my own, won’t bring back Bernard, John or Keith, but I’d feel as if I had failed in my responsibilities as a friend if I didn’t express my feelings at the passing of Robert McNamara, who made it to 93 before he left the scene. My friends never made it to their 25th birthdays.
