By Gary Jaramillo
Those are questions I found myself asking the television the other night while watching a program about the war in Afghanistan and other ones across the planet.
I was just young enough to barely miss the Vietnam War, and now I’m too old for the wars that seem to have gone on forever. I was watching the kids in 60-pound gear walking through sewage up to their knees in fields so they could avoid the IEDs in the street where their daily patrols should be taking place – but they can’t - because it’s too easy to be blown up by these improvised explosive devices.
I can’t imagine having to wake up to that every day of my life. I found myself crying alone in front of the TV while those children – 18, 19 and 20 year old boys and girls - doing what is expected of grown men and women in a place that can only be described as a nightmare. And they do the job of men and women and much more – because that is what they have been asked to do for all of us.
I thought, my God, those kids should be playing a pickup game of basketball, shopping for nice new pretty things or sitting in the shade at a Sonic listening to music hugging on their high school sweethearts. Damn. While I’m climbing into bed in my safe and comfortable home, those kids are opening their eyes to another day of absolutely terrifying and uncertain hell – that is – if they have been able to sleep at all.
What’s gone wrong? How long will this insanity last? How far are we willing to go with the idea of sending our children to their death or total life mental and physical injury? How come it just never seems to end? And why - in this day and age is it still OK?
Please don’t mistake this writing as a rant against doing what has to be done. And please don’t mistake me as someone who is not patriotic or understanding of the fact that sometimes we have to fight for our futures continued freedom.
This writing is not about any of that. It’s about the shame of it all. That right now - in this new millennium – we still are killing one another to make a point- instead of finding a way to talk with each other. The excuse that we come from different upbringings and religions and “they’ll never change” (the enemy) - is a cowards way out.
We speak different languages and look a little different than each other, but even after millenniums – we all still bleed the same color, cry the same tears, have the same hopes and know how to love those we care about the most. How on earth did we become so separated when we are of the same genetic make up and identical in a majority of so many wonderful ways?
It kills me that our countries decide that the only way to come to agreement is through war and who carries the biggest stick. The powers that be don’t think twice about packing up one of our kids and sending him or her to their doom, yet only cry after they have been sent home long past and gone to their makers.
It’s robbery. We steal our children’s lives in the name of country and our freedoms, but nothing is ever said about what they would have wanted. Perhaps a wife, children, laughter in a safe home - and old age. When will the insanity stop? Why is it so damn easy to send our babies away to die in a strange place while we sit here and pound our chests and act like this is the way it’s supposed to be - and we can’t change it?
There will be those upset with me and still believe that I’m against all of this sadness. You would be wrong. I’m against the reasons why supposed intelligent people decide that war, death and the loss of someone’s child is the only way to find common ground and respect for each other.
Personally, I get physically sick when I think about young American boys or girls trudging through waste high dirty water and crap and possibly dying there, so that a suit or uniform in Washington can make a point about who’s right or wrong. I think of their momma’s and daddy’s who won’t ever see their babies again. I swear – what the hell are we doing? The minute we resign ourselves to believing that killing is the only way – to get our way – all else is lost. Gone forever.
I know our kids sign up for service, but I’m sure it’s with the hope they don’t have to die for wanting to make a living and feed their families and maybe get the help to go to college after they have served in our military. It’s time the pomp and circumstance and parades were held only for those children who have served for many many years and are retiring for serving in a country that hasn’t seen war in 100 years because we all finally learned to discuss the problems of our world and lives as kind, understanding and hopeful people across this vast planet.
God Bless America, and God Bless our beautiful, brave and honorable boys and girls who stand guard and protect us through sunsets and sunrise each and every day. May their battles abroad and battles within - be forever stilled.
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"act like this is the way it’s supposed to be - and we can’t change it"
ReplyDeleteThis gets to me, too. Well said, Gary.