The light at the end of the tunnel

What, for you, my reader, is the light at the end of the tunnel? James Russell Lowell (1819-91) said it's a train coming toward you. If it's a single track and everybody's watches are accurate and synchronized to standard time zones, the train coming in the other direction should have waited while you were clear to go thru the tunnel, and you must get through it in your allotted time slice for the other train.

I think of the light at the end of the tunnel as a Vietcong with a flashlight (unknown origin), i.e.: something bad coming to hit me but that superficially looks like it might be good, such as a smiling face that tells lies. I was reading an unimginably horrific story about one of the "tunnel rats" in Vietnam and now I've lost the URL. Without question, each and every one of the politicians who sent men to wretchedness and often death and/or dismemberment in Vietnam should eat that story^[1] and then say, looking in the eyes of their intended victims: "Sure, get to it guys. I gotta run now; The executive dining room stops serving in 20 minutes. Hava good trip. Your country appreciates your patriotic service, really we do. Thanks again. Bye, now.".