Monica Benderman: In Freedom's Name

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/9101


In Freedom's Name
by Monica Benderman | Aug 2 2007


snip//

It's five in the morning. In a parking lot opposite an abandoned Winn-Dixie store sits an old red pick-up with more rust than paint and a rope holding the hood down. The driver's door is open and sticking out are a pair of slippered feet. The man they belong to is trying to sleep. Everything he owns is piled into the bed of the truck.

He once called himself 'Honest Abe', and is the spitting image of our sixteenth president. For years he traveled to schools around the country sharing his love for history in a one-act play he had written, dressed in the black hat and tails of his namesake. Now accused of stealing money from the people he worked for over the past five years, he has been arrested and released. He had worked for room and board and for reasons known to him, his social security was meager. He cared more about teaching children our country's history than saving money for his retirement. His hands and feet are blistered with open wounds; a skin disease no one seems able to diagnose. Not wanting the burden of having to care for him, the city has decided to let him live in the parking lot until his court date. A police officer has said that it would be best if the man simply died.

Freedom?

snip//

Let me tell you something about freedom.

Freedom does not rely on history. Freedom does not rely on endless lectures on where our culture has been and where it is going.

Freedom does not rely on young men and women signing their lives away for an enlistment bonus serving as nothing more than a glittery facade to keep innocents from knowing they're about to become slaves.

Freedom does not rely on wars being fought on foreign soil so we don't have to face our enemies at home.

Freedom does not rely on the work of past generations, so that this generation can remain idle in their responsibility, consumed by achieving the pretense of success.

Freedom does not rely on others fighting our battles while we profess moral support for their actions from living rooms and computer monitors where our words are posted using pseudonyms so our government cannot track our actions.

Freedom.

It is August. At the end of the month the final brigades designated as part of the "surge" for security in Iraq are scheduled to deploy from Fort Stewart. Soldiers don't hide their feelings much any more. In grocery stores, gas stations and local businesses, more and more soldiers are willing to express their displeasure at the continued deployments with no definitive end. Some soldiers are returning for their fourth deployment in four years.

Freedom.


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