William Jefferson is a Vietnam veteran from Buxton.

Fifty-eight years ago this month — almost a lifetime — they failed to tell me, a 20-year-old college dropout, that being drafted into the armed forces would mean going up against some of the world’s best soldiers, fighting for their homeland in a 10-year-long war that should never have happened.

It would also mean, if I survived, fighting “one battle after another,” against increasingly formidable odds, for the rest of my life, to hold onto the freedoms I briefly surrendered while wearing a uniform.

The enemies that I face — that we all must now confront — are those who, from within, would turn our democracy into a playground restricted to the rich and privileged, while turning our planet into a wasteland. They treat our Constitution as an optional owner’s manual; they happily send others off to fight, but see no gain, no profit in ending war. They hide their lies behind “thoughts and prayers.”

I am always on the lookout for allies. So when I first began to hear sound bites from some oyster farmer up the coast, I listened. And what I heard sounded an awful lot like what I had begun to articulate, just out of the army and finding my voice while mending fences on a farm, all those years ago.

The Army had taught me to be fearful of exposing myself, but in 1970, fresh out of uniform, I took a deep breath and joined a ceremony Vietnam Vets Against the War organized at the State House to coincide with those at other state capitols, and in Washington. 

The guys I met in Augusta were angry. Some were shaking with fury, but they came, like those in Washington, not to assault or destroy, but to throw away the medals they’d been awarded, and to explain why they no longer counted them as honors. They came as the first organization of American veterans ever to demand an end to their war while it was still fully engaged.

Here in Maine, they set up a speaker’s stand in the Capitol rotunda. Some guys stood and spoke about the terrible acts they’d witnessed — or committed. They were dressed in olive drab uniform shirts embroidered with their former unit and rank, and shoulder-length hair. Some cried.

I had arrived in my good-boy sport jacket and tie, not yet out long enough to have acquired much of a shag. I felt exposed, shivering, half expecting the MPs to sweep in and escort us all to the brig at any moment.

Then a man stood up to the podium, a state senator from Lewiston, Democrat. He said we were a disgrace, called us communists and traitors. I listened, quaking with anger.

Finally, he stood back from the microphone. There wasn’t a sound, as a little old guy in a neat blue serge suit stepped up. And as he began to speak, I prepared myself for further attacks. 

He told us his name, and his hometown, said he had enlisted in the Army in 1916, cited campaigns in which he’d fought: Cantigny, Belleau Wood, Marne, Meuse-Argonne, battles long forgotten — except by those who’d been there.

“When it was over,” he said, “they paraded us up here to the cemetery, those of us who came back.”

“I carried the flag,” he said. “And there were speeches. They said the fighting had ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.” 

“They said it was the war to end all wars.”

He paused, “And we’ve been fighting ever since.”

“These guys,” he said, pointing to us, “are right!”

To this day, I have nightmares in which I’m sent back into combat. Graham Platner has lived my horror and volunteered to go back, both in the Army and in the Marine Corps. That he survived, and speaks now with reason and authority about the threats we face, I consider nothing short of miraculous.

I don’t eat oysters. So I won’t consider it a loss if Platner chooses to leave aquaculture behind and take up the increasingly critical battles in Washington. 

And you know? I have a feeling he just might make a difference.