Thousands of United States men and women are engaged in untold acts of bravery and drudgery on behalf of what our leaders have defined as vital American interests in Iraq and Afghanistan.
- David Carr
The New York Times May 28 issue carried a photograph of a woman lying prone before a headstone in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery. The words beneath read: "Mary McHugh visited the grave of her fiancé, Sgt James J Regan, who was killed in Iraq in February."
It is a very moving photograh. It got me thinking about an imaginary America. In my imaginary America no elected official would ever be allowed to send American men and women off to war if that elected official has never been to war him or herself.
Immediately after I wrote the sentence above, it occurred to me also that even in the real America, no man or woman can enter any one of America's armed forces without being subjected to a psychiatric examination. No American sailor, marine, airman or soldier is allowed to go into a war zone without having seen a psychiatrist first. On the other hand, those elected officials who send Americans to war are not required to have so much as a cursory psychiatric examination before taking office. (There is evidence that a few of them need extensive psychiatric examination and treatment!)
Getting back to my extremely active imagination. It is unfortunate that genuine patriots like Sargeant Regan and others have lost their lives in the middle east, while the elected officials who sent them to their deaths are using those deaths for political advantage under the banner of 'patriotism'. Then hurry home, or to a local sports stadium, to cheer for some baseball, basketball or football player. Where are the cheers for Sargeant Regan?
I am sure that there will be those who will call me crazy after reading what I have to say next, but I have to say it: there is something despicably un-American about thousands of Americans sitting in a sports stadium cheering for some jock to score another point while the Sargeant Regans of this nation are dying on foreign soil.
In my imaginary America there would be no baseball, basketball or football games until the war was over.
Our so-called 'leaders' have sent Americans into yet another war zone wherein, more often than not, the enemy cannot be easily identified. Let me share something with you that was also in the aforecited newspaper, as reported by Michael Kamber.
Sargeant David Safstrom is serving his third tour of duty in Iraq, since 2003. His unit is Delta Company of the First Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. He came upon a body. It was that of a man other soldiers had killed. When a search of the body was conducted, Kamber reports '...they found identification showing [the dead man] to be a sargeant in the Iraqi Army.' He had been in the process of setting in place a roadside bomb.
Sargeant Safstrom, in utter disillusionment at the discovery of the body's identification, asked himself "What are we doing here? Why are we still here?"
He went on to add, "We're helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us."
Sources: "Not to see the fallen is no favor" and "As Allies Turn Foe, Disillusion Rises in some GIs", New York Times
