"Thank you for your service" seems like such a small thing to say. Kind of like the "I'm sorry" that's doled out at a wake or funeral. Recently I came across the statement "Yeah it's great that everyone has yellow ribbons on their trees and on their cars, but I can't see those from Iraq." It broke my heart. And as I sit here working on my thesis and being bombarded by facts like 20 million gallons of agent orange were used in Vietnam I start to get really pissed off once again.
I don't have the answers - I don't pretend to. But I don't think asking that we take care of the people who we send to war is too much. We are losing a generation of young people to this war - and I'm not just talking about the ones who are killed in action.
So to the Veterans of Iraq and past wars I say Thank you for your service because I don't know what else to say.
3 comments:
I agree Jenn.
I saw something on the news today about how many soldiers are coming from from the war in Iraq and then committing suicide. It broke my heart.
I've studied the reasons why soldiers fight, I have walked over battlefields of long ago and wondering why...I'll be damned if I have an answer to it all.
I know it goes so much deeper than human nature and politics. And the fact is that those who die or go to fight these wars are the ones who can least afford to lose their lives/livelihoods to it.
I think you said a lot and well said.
Jane - Here is a little known fact that I came across when I was doing a paper on PTSD last semester. There are 56,000 (rounded) names on the Vietnam Wall. The number of men who returned from Vietnam and committed suicide is LARGER. Info from Penny Coleman's book Flashback.
As I said Tyler if I lived in NC you'd be getting more than that.
Casdok - thanks!
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