The Greatest Beer Run Ever: Shadows, Lies, and the Human Future

"Lies are never just words. They are wounds that fracture trust, divide communities, and shadow generations. Healing begins the moment we choose truth, compassion, and love." - Mary Coughlin

I was born in 1959. The Vietnam War was the backdrop of my earliest years. While I was learning to walk and talk, our nation was unraveling, sending young men into chaos, fracturing families, and feeding disinformation into the homes of the people it claimed to serve.

The war was never just “over there.” It lived in our living rooms, carried in the distrust that grew each time official words clashed with what we could plainly see. The images on TV, the whispered grief in households, the headlines full of spin, all of it left a mark. The shadow of Vietnam shaped an entire generation, and it still aches in me today.

When I watched The Greatest Beer Run Ever, that ache rose up again. Beneath the absurdity of a man carrying beer into a war zone was a deeper truth: the devastating cost of lies, the destruction born of disconnection, and the depravity of a culture that normalizes harm while insisting it is justified.

The Culture of Distrust

Vietnam was not only a war fought with guns. It was a war fought with words—cover-ups, propaganda, and calculated deception. An entire generation learned that those in power could not be trusted to tell the truth. That lesson, etched into the soul of a nation, has never fully left us.

Today, we still live with its legacy. The tactics may change, but the pattern remains: lies corrode trust, and trust, once broken, is not easily restored.

The Cost of Lies in My Own Life

I sometimes wonder if growing up in the shadow of Vietnam is why I have such an extreme reaction when people lie. My rage is quick, hot, and absolute. And perhaps it’s because I know, deep in my bones, what lies can do.

Dishonesty isn’t harmless, it destroys trust, divides communities, and dehumanizes entire nations. As a child, I absorbed that atmosphere, and even now, decades later, my heart still flares with anger when I sense deception. Because to me, it’s never “just a lie.” It is a wound. A reminder of the cost we all bear when truth is abandoned.

And maybe that rage is not only pain but also purpose. A signal that truth matters. That compassion matters. That belonging and honesty are the bedrock of our shared humanity.

The Awakening We Need

What struck me most in The Greatest Beer Run Ever was not the chaos or the camaraderie, but the awakening, the moment when a loyal friend begins to see through the lies and recognize the human cost. That kind of awakening is our way forward.

We do not heal through more propaganda or outrage. We heal when we remember what it means to be human together. When we let compassion, belonging, and love matter more than domination and deception.

• Love that tells the truth.

• Compassion that refuses to turn away.

• Belonging that builds trust instead of suspicion.

• Humanity that insists on dignity for all.

A Call Beyond One Nation

My heart still hurts from the shadow of this war. Yet that hurt is also a teacher. It reminds me that the only antidote to disinformation is truth. The only antidote to fear is connection. The only antidote to cultural depravity is love.

If The Greatest Beer Run Ever offers us anything, it is a reminder that even in the absurdity of war, awakening is possible. May we not wait for more tragedies or more lies to teach us again.

Because this isn’t just about one war, one nation, or one moment in time. It is about us, as a species. We stand at a crossroads where the choices we make will determine not only the health of our democracies, but the survival of our humanity.

Will we keep repeating cycles of destruction and deceit, or will we reimagine a new way forward, one grounded in truth, compassion, belonging, and love?

The answer will define the future not only of our nation, but of our shared human story.

Until we remember our humanity,

Mary