Support Our Troops This Memorial Day

[Itsthetruth]

kalamazoopride.blogspot.com
Saturday, May 28, 2005

Support Our Troops
This Memorial Day

Now that Bush’s lies have been exposed, I am wondering this Memorial Day weekend what the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are thinking. My guess is most of them are thinking, ‘if only I can survive today, if only I can survive tomorrow and if only I can survive this tour, I will be eternally grateful.’ My guess is that for most of them, the idea of heroism in defense of liberty, as voiced by Bush and his friends is not quite so important as getting through the day all in one piece.

My hope would be that they would all survive to come back home, back to their moms and dads and their families. The reality is that they will not all come back, and too many of them will come back with missing legs and arms or blinded, and more will come back traumatized for life by the horror they have experienced in that desert hell. They are living with the knowledge that a sniper could take any one of them out anytime on the next morning patrol, or with the experience of surviving a car bomb that ended the life of a buddy on a dusty road. And with the knowledge that any one of them, many fresh out of high school, could be next.

And I wonder today what their wives and girl friends and moms and dads are thinking today. I can’t presume to speak for them, but my guess is that they are holding on to the desperate hope that nothing will happen, that they will never see that military car pull up and stop in the street outside. I can’t really imagine how they are responding to this awful war. Every day there is news of US soldiers who will come home in flag-draped caskets. The news is rarely on the front page. It is too routine for the front page anymore. But it is the most important news in the world for the families of those serving in Iraq.

It makes me angry that men and women and children are dying every day in a war that was started by lies. It makes me angry that fathers and mothers will lose their sons and daughters in this war, that wives will lose their husbands, that their children will grow up without their fathers.

Bush talks about bravery, about fighting for the freedom of the Iraqis, about defending America. Bush is an ignorant, mean little man who uses big words to cover his big lies. But his words cannot cover the death and the misery and the hate he and his friends have brought about. He hides behind his words and behind the American flag. And he lets those who serve take the bullets that he ran from during Vietnam.

Support our troops. Let’s bring them home now. Alive.

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