Last night my son John (he’s 8) was reading a biography of Coretta Scott King. The book included a section on her views of the Vietnam War. This left John confused. He asked me why the United States attacked Vietnam in the first place.
I tried to explain it but it turned out he didn’t know what communism or the Cold War were, so I had a lot of background information I needed to fill in. After I tried to define those terms, I concluded with something like this:
“So American leaders thought that if Vietnam became a fully communist country, other countries in that part of the world would become communist too, and that would make it harder to win the Cold War.”
John sat up (he had been laying in bed getting ready to go to sleep) and an incredulous smile flashed across his face. “So…” he said, “they were afraid they were going to lose the Cold War so they started a real war?” Then he burst out laughing.
I love this boy.
Colorblind Christians 