So I’m reading Reporting Vietnam, published by the Library of America. It consists entirely of articles from throughout the war.

The last article I read mentioned how President Johnson, in March of 1968 declared that due to the fact that during war the President need to focus his attention entirely on the war, he wouldn’t be running for re-election (can’t mix campaigning). This article also mentioned that by this time many advisors of his wanted to stop bombing the North.

I repeat, many advisors wanted to stop bombing the North.

To be sure, fact: America and South Vietnam were bombing North Vietnam.

Today’s article includes, “Outside Hanoi, the driver’s first job, I discovered, was to look for a shelter for the passengers whenever the alert or the pre-alert sounded. Every hamlet, sometimes every house, is equipped with a loud-speaker, and the alarm is rung out by the hamlet bell…When there is no hamlet nearby, a band of soldiers, tramping along with a transistor radio, may warn you that planes are coming.”

Fact: the NV commies had decided they wanted to live and so built and used bomb shelters.

****

Like fish which breathe in the water, or Everest climbers who pack oxygen for their summit, it seems that there are “tells”, if you will, that can be used to make sense of life on Earth. Can’t breathe underwater? Probably don’t live there.

One such “tell” that you live in a country that is being “bombed” is the presence of “bomb shelters.”

Final question in today’s lesson: What, then, does it mean if you claim to be “bombed” but have no bomb shelters?

Bonus question: What does it mean if you repeat the claim that some country is consistently being bombed, without ever thinking to ask, “Do they have bomb shelters?”

(Answers: 1. The claim is a lie. And 2. You’re a demonstrable fool.)