PDA

View Full Version : Kill Your Sons



thedrifter
12-15-05, 07:00 AM
Kill Your Sons
America through a glass, darkly
by Alan Bisbort - December 15, 2005

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself driving behind a car whose entire back side -- bumper, trunk, window -- was plastered with patriotic stickers. Among the visual cacophony, two caught my eye. One read, "My Son Is a U.S. Marine" and the other, "If It Absolutely Has to Be Destroyed Overnight, Call a U.S. Marine."

I have, since then, found myself pondering the psychological gymnastics a parent would have to do before placing these two stickers on their car, side by side. Surely these parents thought about what the stickers were saying, didn't they? As a parent who'd gladly give my life to spare my son's -- and as the son of an Army officer -- I was offended by the juxtaposition. I'm not sure exactly why it offended me. It's one thing to be proud of a son in the military and pay homage to his potential sacrifice, but it's quite another to boast of war's destruction. Are these parents saying they enjoy the fact that little Tommy destroys things overnight? They don't mind that some of those things will absolutely be the homes of families, like their own, who had nothing to do with the alleged fight at hand?

My offended senses were rekindled the next day after learning about a bomb attack in Iraq that left 10 U.S. Marines dead, wounding 11 others. Did they really, absolutely, have to be destroyed overnight? It's no surprise that this deadly attack took place in Falluja. Falluja É just the sound of its name evokes godforsaken places like Guernica or Chechnya. It was here, in November 2004, that American military forces conducted the most massive, concentrated offensive in the war. In the course of the Blitzkrieg, hundreds of civilians were killed. It has since come to light that U.S. forces employed WP (white phosphorus) shells, an incendiary device banned by international treaty for use against civilians. WP causes the sort of terrible burns from which only death is a relief. Women and children were hit by WP shells. This was done in our name.

And you wonder why the people in Falluja and the surrounding province of Anbar (where, in the last nine months, 205 American soldiers have been killed) are still ****ed?

My disgust is not with the soldiers in Iraq. It's a disgust that probably dates back to my teen-hood at the tail end of the Vietnam War. Here I was, barely in my teens, and people in my age group were browbeaten with the Bible verse (Corinthians I, 13: 11): "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things." This was delivered with such maddening condescension that it's little wonder, in retrospect, why young people in that era were turned into little revolutionaries.

After all, we were being told that the "manly" world for which we were required to "put away childish things" was one that consisted of a war that seemed to have no end and eventually killed more than 57,000 American boys, maimed -- physically and mentally -- an entire generation and destroyed several generations of Vietnamese people. And let's not even get into the assassinations, race riots, greed, pollution, lying, etc. that were the other facets of this "manly" world.

Being a contrarian, even then, I read a few verses further along in Corinthians to find, "For now we see through a glass, darkly." That's more like it, I remember thinking.

What goes around comes around.

My father was an American colonel, World War II veteran, admired by his peers. I admired him for many reasons, but his political views during the Vietnam War were not among them. What I couldn't grasp then as a psychologically limited teen, I can grasp now: War, on some subtle level, is a form of child abuse. Yes, sure, the 18-year-olds who enlist or are drafted and go through the rigors of basic training are physically men, and technically adults (though they won't be served a beer); but they are still children. Here in the U.S. where infantilizing is a lifelong process, you are still a child at 18, and 21, and 25, and É I'm not sure what the outer limit is anymore.

We as a nation have collectively taken on the personality of the president, who is a boy in a man's body. Since Sept. 11, 2001, we've been throwing a collective hissy fit that has embraced the whole world. A child's view of the world is that he or she is entitled to whatever they want and that, in order to get it, any justification whatsoever is acceptable.

Maybe that's what offended me most about the car's stickers. These parents were abusing their child. Absolutely.

Ellie

rb1651
12-15-05, 08:53 AM
It's probably a good thing that his location wasn't posted with that letter, because as the bumper sticker said, "If it Absolutely Has To Be Destroyed Overnight...."

'Nough said.

Ron

germe1967
12-15-05, 10:39 AM
Could "Ellie" actually be "Cindy"?
I think maybe so...........

thedrifter
12-15-05, 10:46 AM
germe1967

Don't shoot the messenger...;)
The author is posted

Ellie