Thanks Sergeant T
Preface: This is the last I'll write about this topic but I felt I had to express my frustration and concern.
Our Sergeant T is doing pretty well all things considered. He lost part of his intestines and now has pins in his leg but he's going to survive. Other soldiers yesterday weren't so lucky. Four died and eight were wounded on Sunday in three separate incidents.
This morning military officials visited him in the hospital and awarded him the Purple Heart. I had no idea that they awarded them so quickly. His wife says she feels proud and angry at the same time. Sergeant T has worked his entire adult life serving his community and his country as a State Trooper and a Reservist. She's so proud of that but at the same time angry that it seems as if we are stuck in a no-win situation that is only going to lead to more deaths - both US and Iraqi.
I wonder what's wrong with us. I know that things like this are happening all the time, but why aren't people more appalled by this? What does it say when his hometown newspaper doesn't even mention what happened (and his wife works for the newspaper!) and the national papers devote anywhere from eight - eleven lines to report what happened to he and the eleven others wounded or killed. Yet we heard about poor Anna Nicole for weeks and weeks and weeks. People say it isn't really news anymore. Well why isn't it? If it were, maybe we'd be out of there by now. At least more people would be trying to do something to stop it.
Thanks to Sergeant T and all the other brave men and women risking it all. Some of us are paying attention and we salute you.
posted by Lady Julia @ 1:01 PM
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4 Comments:
Some *are* appalled and have been for a very long time. We've been labeled "unpatriotic". Some of us have gotten death threats (thinking specifically of the Dixie Chicks now) for speaking our minds.
We see our local book stores proudly display new hardcovers with names such as:
-Godless: The Church of Liberalism
-The Terrible Truth about Liberals
-Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism
We watch our political candidates get smeared as unpatriotic because they weren't wounded badly enough during Viet Nam while the man who didn't even go is portrayed as a patriot.
There are people who care. There are people who are appalled.
Good to hear that he's going to make it home.
I think that more than anything else, war is a product of misinformation. Sometimes this misinformation is deliberate, as in the US and Britain going into Iraq, and sometimes it is not deliberate.
Whatever the case, the only real solution would seem to be knowledge,.......truth. I just can't believe that people living on one side of the planet would want to attack people living on the other side of the planet if they really knew them, knew their families, their children, their hopes and dreams, their fears, their loves.
Leaders throughout history, political and otherwise, have often used misinformation to start wars to further their own selfish ends,
wars that are so much harder to end than to start. The more light we can shine on this, the harder it will be for them to do it in the future.
We may not get out of Iraq for a long time, and when we do leave, that country may be even worse off than it was under Saddam. Perhaps the only good that can come of this sickening war is knowledge,...and a determination never to repeat such a foolish mistake. Perhaps in time, if we survive as a species, we AS a species will have learned to look twice before crossing roads that cannot be uncrossed.
It wasn't my intention to start a liberal vs conservative thing here. Obviously there are some who are appalled and many who care. But how many are moved to any action at all - on either side? Even something as simple as writing our elected officials to tell them of our concerns? People talk, but few are moved to action. I find that sad.
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