The Honor Roll

Before we get too happy over the Democratic victory in this week's election, let's consider the heart-breaking "Honor Roll" of the Dead that runs each evening on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer.  So many of the dead in Iraq and Afghanistan are young and poor, from little towns that are dying.  I see their photos and think of their recent childhoods.  I see kids who were stalwart and brave.  Who were bullies and pranksters.  Who were fools and premature sages.  I think of their last seconds of life.  And the undying grief of their mothers and fathers, whose own hopes have died. 

The cruelest joke: the military is almost the only option these young men and women have to improve their lives, their prospects.  Some improvement.  Some prospects.  Did their mothers raise them to be mere cannon fodder? 

They raised them to be the hope of their future. 

Yeah, my guitar gently weeps, all right. Let's drink to them, and give them a moment of affectionate silence.

Comments

[Dezel]

Well put my friend, I could not agree more. Nice to keep things in perspective.

Happy Sipping!

Dezel

[David]

Terry - I am not sure I am ok with the young and poor. My nephew is currently in Afghanistan, while not rich he is not poor. A good friend of mine from high school is in IRAQ, neither poor nor young.

If I were not just barely too old I would probably enlist. I was the first generations without the draft, still having to register. I did not have military service. I think I missed a valueable experience.

Just a thought.

[Terry Hughes]

David, I was of course generalizing. But it's the pictures of the very young people, whose lives were just beginning, that haunt and sadden me the most.

"An expense of spirit in a waste of shame" -- Shakespeare

[David]

War is never pretty and usually the result of some personal interests. I believe this one was to "secure American interests." War is also the expression of the worst of mankind yet sometimes one must fight. Again I do not believe this is the case here. I believe this war is the result of a greater war going on in the US over the last 30 years. The war to enslave Joe Citizen and facilitate corporate profits. I think that if we take on the bigger war we might avoid other conflicts...

[Terry Hughes]

David, have you been talking to Lou Dobbs again? (Watching him now.)

[David]

Terry, how perceptive. I do watch Lou Dobbs, I found his show last month, I think you will find the underlying theme of my blog of Quality over Quantity is perhaps a different way to see the same thing.

I have even started a couple of new blogs but will not pimp them.

For my real job I have CNN-FOX-CNBC going from 4 AM through the evening unless IWG comes and pulls me out of my world and takes me to lunch.