a column submitted to my website

[shadowknows69]

The truth you can't handle
by Dissident

Private Ryan is screwed

A friend of mine told me an incredibly sad story yesterday. It’s about a little girl whose daddy won’t ever be coming home. I won’t use her real name but for the sake of this narrative we’ll call her Kathy. Kathy is like many unfortunate children in our country right now who will have to ask herself and others in the years to come why her daddy was taken from her. Kathy’s daddy died in an attack in Iraq, defending our freedoms, or spreading democracy, or fighting the terrorists over there or just guarding all our oil that’s trapped under the desert sands. Pick your own reason for the war; this piece is not about reasons for policy but policy itself. Tragic as Kathy’s loss is, it is about to be compounded by another. Kathy’s mother is in the armed forces as well and is about to be deployed to Iraq. Let me go over that one more time. Kathy’s father was killed in the war and now her only remaining parent (we only really get two ya know) is going to be shipped off to the same killing grounds that took her father. I suppose the revenge factor might make Kathy’s mother a more focused, efficient soldier but in my opinion it doesn’t do much for the family unit.

So Private Ryan is screwed in today’s army. There would be no desperate hunt for the only remaining son of a grieving mother whose family gave enough to the cause of freedom. Kathy now has to risk giving the rest of her world to the war that took half of it because the army’s need for fresh cannon fodder seemingly can’t take things like common sense into account. How does it at all serve the betterment of this country to completely destroy a family unit like this? I know the mother and father both joined of their own free wills, knowing the price that may be asked of them and to my knowledge Kathy’s mother is going willingly and dutifully as our great fighting forces do when called. Is there no room for humanity in this inhumane game called war? Is there no one that will stand and say what madness this is? Is there no one in power that can see that it might be important to let this girl, this future of our country, keep what’s left of her shattered life in tact and close? This situation wasn’t one that would normally happen in the fictional Private Ryan’s war. Fathers, sons and brothers died together. Rarely sisters, mothers and wives.

There will be some who might accuse me of being anti-feminist suggesting that a woman gets a pass because she’s a mother. If so it’s a cross I’ll bear. I care only for the greatest victims of any war. The innocent children whose future we apparently fight and die for. A generation of war orphans in any country is a generation of continued hatred and disillusionment. Family is the glue that holds society together. Don’t destroy them for fresh cannon fodder. If your war must go on then don’t only fight the enemies you perceive to be “over there”. Fight the enemy that has too long plagued us over here. Apathy towards the needs of our children on all levels. Ignore me at your peril
Dissident out

[Boomer]

1. Nominated

[Wetzelbill]

2. damn that was great

sad, but.. damn...

no words I can say can do it justice.

[eridani]

3. If one parent dies in combat--

--the other parent should not be sent into combat, period. Never mind the gender of the one that got killed.

[mcscajun]

5. Exactly, This isn't about motherhood...it's about the child.

If one parent is killed, the other should be left out of combat. Not saying they shouldn't serve, but it should be far, far from any combat or combat-support role.

Fine Family Value, this. Ugh. We should throw that meme back in the Republicans' faces on this story.

Nominated.

[Hissyspit]

4. Very Good. Nomination, also.