and we never forgot...
i need to get something off my chest:
i am watching the majestic (brilliant fucking movie, if you haven't seen it, run out and rent it now. right fucking now. it's jim carey's first completely serious role, and fuck me gently with a chainsaw sideways if he doesn't pull it off in spades. i would liken him to jimmy stewart in this movie. but i digress), and this movie, of course, makes me cry. and shit, who knows? i guess i need it. but while i watch it, i keep thinking about wwii and our current little shindig, and i can't help but wonder what the big difference is.
then it hit me: we are not invested in our current wars (yes, wars. the us is currently fighting in two countries still. we only hear about iraq, but our sons and daughters are still dying in afghanistan as well). oh, i mean, i am invested, i am so fucking invested that sometimes it feels as if someone has pulled my very entrails out of my stomach and gone sifting through them looking for gold. and there are many like me, and i end up talking to them in chats, and here and there around base and post, and i see my own ache and longing and melancholy staring right back at me as if mirrored in their eyes.
but we, the country, we are not invested in the outcome overseas. no one is asking us to cut back on sugar. no one is telling us we have to make our tires last longer cause our boys need the rubber to win the war. no one is asking us to do our part to aid the war effort. no one is telling us to grow a victory garden. no one is asking us to buy war bonds. shit, our very president urged us to go out after 9/11 and go shopping, for fuck's sake! and if companies haven't latched onto this as an opportunity to make a fast buck, then i am one blind and stupid motherfucker that should be clubbed like a baby seal, cause i see so many "support the troops" magnets and bumperstickers, and flags, etc etc etc.
we used to be proud to say our sons were serving. we gave each returning soldier a hero's welcome. then we got jaded, somewhere around the vietnam era. i try to tell every vietnam vet i see thanks. they didn't get the welcome home that the boys from wwii got. but they were doing the same thing, serving their country.
as the troops are doing now.
i remember watching george bush senior on a tv in argentina, overdubbed in castellano, and wondering if some of my friends were on their way to the desert then. i even joined the air force after i came home from south america, and still managed to miss any real action (i hadn't been doing my job long enough to have been included with the small handful of dentists and assistants who went to bosnia to do dental work on the un troops there), i felt like the midnight oil song, forgotten years. i hadn't been asked to sacrifice. none of my friends had died on the field of battle.
that never stopped me from appreciating the ones who have gone on before, regardless of what war, police action, conflict, or offensive they might've been called to.
and now, i am sacrificing, o my droogs and beloved non-existant readers, though for only a couple more days (well, till the next round, where i will do it all again), and i want to send out a reminder to those who maybe don't really think about what's going on "over there": our sons and daughters are still dying. this thing isn't over. it might very well be a long time before we can actually call it "over", before our sons and daughters are no longer dying on desert sands far from home.
and if we might take a moment, maybe just a couple seconds each day, when we turn off our tv's, and our computers, and our ipods, and our video games, and we launch a momentary prayer heavenward that our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, husbands and wives might all return home safe, and sound. that a peaceful end might be found to this conflict.
but most importantly, o my beloveds everywhere, that we vow that we will not forget.
we will not forget.
darth sardonic
i am watching the majestic (brilliant fucking movie, if you haven't seen it, run out and rent it now. right fucking now. it's jim carey's first completely serious role, and fuck me gently with a chainsaw sideways if he doesn't pull it off in spades. i would liken him to jimmy stewart in this movie. but i digress), and this movie, of course, makes me cry. and shit, who knows? i guess i need it. but while i watch it, i keep thinking about wwii and our current little shindig, and i can't help but wonder what the big difference is.
then it hit me: we are not invested in our current wars (yes, wars. the us is currently fighting in two countries still. we only hear about iraq, but our sons and daughters are still dying in afghanistan as well). oh, i mean, i am invested, i am so fucking invested that sometimes it feels as if someone has pulled my very entrails out of my stomach and gone sifting through them looking for gold. and there are many like me, and i end up talking to them in chats, and here and there around base and post, and i see my own ache and longing and melancholy staring right back at me as if mirrored in their eyes.
but we, the country, we are not invested in the outcome overseas. no one is asking us to cut back on sugar. no one is telling us we have to make our tires last longer cause our boys need the rubber to win the war. no one is asking us to do our part to aid the war effort. no one is telling us to grow a victory garden. no one is asking us to buy war bonds. shit, our very president urged us to go out after 9/11 and go shopping, for fuck's sake! and if companies haven't latched onto this as an opportunity to make a fast buck, then i am one blind and stupid motherfucker that should be clubbed like a baby seal, cause i see so many "support the troops" magnets and bumperstickers, and flags, etc etc etc.
we used to be proud to say our sons were serving. we gave each returning soldier a hero's welcome. then we got jaded, somewhere around the vietnam era. i try to tell every vietnam vet i see thanks. they didn't get the welcome home that the boys from wwii got. but they were doing the same thing, serving their country.
as the troops are doing now.
i remember watching george bush senior on a tv in argentina, overdubbed in castellano, and wondering if some of my friends were on their way to the desert then. i even joined the air force after i came home from south america, and still managed to miss any real action (i hadn't been doing my job long enough to have been included with the small handful of dentists and assistants who went to bosnia to do dental work on the un troops there), i felt like the midnight oil song, forgotten years. i hadn't been asked to sacrifice. none of my friends had died on the field of battle.
that never stopped me from appreciating the ones who have gone on before, regardless of what war, police action, conflict, or offensive they might've been called to.
and now, i am sacrificing, o my droogs and beloved non-existant readers, though for only a couple more days (well, till the next round, where i will do it all again), and i want to send out a reminder to those who maybe don't really think about what's going on "over there": our sons and daughters are still dying. this thing isn't over. it might very well be a long time before we can actually call it "over", before our sons and daughters are no longer dying on desert sands far from home.
and if we might take a moment, maybe just a couple seconds each day, when we turn off our tv's, and our computers, and our ipods, and our video games, and we launch a momentary prayer heavenward that our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, husbands and wives might all return home safe, and sound. that a peaceful end might be found to this conflict.
but most importantly, o my beloveds everywhere, that we vow that we will not forget.
we will not forget.
darth sardonic
Labels: midnight oil, patriotism, the majestic, war, we will not forget
posted by darth sardonic at 10:06 PM
3 Comments:
That's a beautiful post and something I wondered about myself. Why aren't we being asked to sacrifice like we did in WWII? I dunno. My mother tells stories of how they drew lines up the back of their legs so they would look like they were wearing hose. How they ate peanut butter and crackers for days on end....
Course the peanut butter and crackers were the depression I guess.
I don't know what else to say except I love that movie.
Love Jim Carey; don't know if I've seen the Majestic but sure I'd love him in it. But, most importantly, dude, I won't/can't forget the wars were engaged in. Can't forget because it's in my face every single day. I work with several people who have spouses deployed to one place or the other, plus, as a newspaper journalist, I'm almost forced to confront the ugliness daily.
Let's pray that it's over sooner than later.
We must not forget and it will be our job to teach our children what daddy/ muummy etc did in the war... what war doesn't matter, it's all a criminal waste of life.
pxx
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