STEVE SMITH -- What’s up

My teen years were filled with evenings watching Walter Cronkite tell

the nation what was happening.

Back then, America took everything Cronkite said as gospel, even the

body counts of the Vietnam War’s dead and wounded, which the program’s

director apparently decided were best shown on a slide over Cronkite’s

left shoulder while his audience ate their lasagna. It was years later

that we realized that if the numbers of enemy dead were added up, it

equaled about 75% of the number of grains of sand on Newport Beach.

Even then, as the war wound down, people started talking about the

“peace dividend” as though the land of milk and honey was about to add a

new item to its buffet.

Today we are at war again, the third major one in my lifetime and

already the second for my 11-year-old daughter. There is genuine evil in

our world that must be stopped, and we are being told it will take a very

long time before this war is over.

I doubt that it will ever end, not in any official sense. Both my

mother and father served in the Army in World War II, and they celebrated

those official ends as they read newspapers with 4-inch-high headlines.

This war, however, has a different battleground and an arsenal that can

be transported in a briefcase. That’s a difficult enemy to stop.

But while my parents reaped the benefits of a “peace dividend,” which

also came to this generation over the past 10 or so years, the war

against terrorism may bring us a “war dividend.”

After Sept. 11, I started to believe that there was a “war dividend,”

that perhaps the brutal attack on the World Trade Center had knocked some

sense into us. And as much as I didn’t like the idea of reaping this

dividend on the souls of more than 5,000 dead in New York, Washington and

other points scattered about the country, or gaining even a small

measure of satisfaction on the backs of the brave men and women of our

armed forces, there is no denying that the Sept. 11 attack and the current conflict have changed us.

In New York, my brother, Michael, reported to me a few days ago that

people in the city were still subdued, still the Dr. Jekyll to the city’s

usual Mr. Hyde. But I got the sense that they were numb rather than

undergoing any any life-changing experience. I hope I’m wrong, but then

I’ve always believed that New Yorkers got a bum rap on the rudeness

image.

We are not shopping as much, that I can tell you. Two Saturdays ago, I

went to South Coast Plaza to be a real American and buy something, and I

found a prime parking spot right near the entrance. Hotel occupancy is

down, restaurants are hurting, and air travel is so cheap they’re

practically paying us to fly.

Some of this is from the effects of the economy that was slowing

before the attacks, but most is not. And while I don’t wish for any

business to fold, I can’t help but point out that most of the people who

aren’t shopping, traveling or going to restaurants are doing something

very good instead. They’re staying home.

We should stay home more. Businesses should turn off their signs at

night when they close. Water should not be used to hose down pavement. We

should slow down on the San Diego Freeway and let others in our lane,

even if they’re not signaling, so they can get to the mall to be a good

American. We should say “please,” “thank you” and “I’m sorry” more than

we have been. We should spend more time with our families. We should

spend part of each day giving thanks.

And perhaps it’s time to capitalize on Supervisor Jim Silva’s comment

Tuesday that we give the El Toro back to the Marines. “If I could do

anything with that facility, I would give it back to the Marines,” Silva

said.

That, folks, is an idea whose time has come. Silva wants to give it

back for national security reasons. I want to give it back because our

time is up, and we don’t deserve it either as an airport, a park or a

weed field. El Toro is a peace dividend we should mark “return to sender”

as a war dividend. And I find it remarkable that our local “big three”

politicians, Reps. Dana Rohrabacher and Chris Cox and Assemblyman John

Campbell, have not jumped on this idea like a chicken on a worm. What a

noble exit strategy to get this monkey off their backs.

Here’s hoping we don’t squander our war dividends. Here’s hoping we’ll

continue to remember each day that people are fighting for our right to

be free. And here’s hoping that two years from now, when my daughter

becomes a teenager, she won’t have to live with today’s Walter Cronkite

flashing body counts at dinner time.

* STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and freelance writer. Readers

may leave a message for him on the Daily Pilot hotline at (949) 642-6086.