Posted on 07/08/2007 4:20:20 PM PDT by RDTF
July is a month I sincerely hoped would never come.
At the end of this month, my young son, my only child, deploys with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit. His departure had been six months away, three months; now it is a matter of weeks.
-snip
The ironies of this conflict are many for me. More than 30 years ago, I wrote my master's thesis at Columbia University on "Political Integration of the Kurds in Iraq." Little did I ever suspect that any child of mine would be a pawn in a senseless conflict in that distant land.
-snip-
For a while, I even had an office with a view of Arlington Cemetery. I would frequently shudder as military planes did flyovers during funerals to honor fallen service members.
-snip-
Of course, it is too much to expect that George Herbert Walker Bush would have any recollection of that event, or that he would care that his son is putting my son, and hundreds of thousands like him, in harm's way.
-snip-
Can I expect my son to return unchanged by this experience? If the media reports are any indication, that is doubtful. Will his mind be seriously disturbed by what he sees, or will his body bear wounds that will not heal? Will we, as a nation, do all that we can, as Abraham Lincoln put it, " to care for him who shall hath borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan"?
Or will we continue to make veterans prove that they are entitled to compensation for the injuries they have suffered since we cannot make them whole?
Will it take a universal draft for President Bush and the rest of the country to understand the price that this war is exacting?
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
"The whole article is “I, me, my...”
and wondered ... "Where's Mr Cooney?
I'm no shrink, but I know a few Marines that seemed determined to be the man that didn't exist in their lives because of whatever reason.
I wonder if years from now we learn through some 'study' that the feminist movement of the 60's and beyond produced children bound and determined to be normal, productive men and women of the greatest land on planet Earth. Essentially refuting Mom's thought processes and having the guts to actually do something to help bring Americanism back into America.
Perhaps that's the biggest fear of the anti-war crowd ... the returning warriors are not buying into their tripe and will not become a latter day VVAW, but will come home to build America back in the image they hold dear.
Personally, I would be extremely torn if my son joined the Marines right now and not for the reasons this woman writes about. It pains me that this war is being fought so politically correct and the Marines seem to be taking the brunt of that policy. At the same time I would be so very proud to have raised a child that had such a sense of duty, and be so selfless that he would fight for all of us. If my sons, who are teenagers, decide to join the military, I will be behind them 100% in spite of my misgivings about the way it is being fought.
He may have signed up to get as far as possible from his mother.
Boy, that evil draft sure is something, making our young men into cannon fodder for Bush’s war for oil...Oh, wait, there is no draft! That means her son volunteered...never mind!
She doesn’t have a clue about how he sees things.
Thanks for your service, love your tag
She should be unemployed Monday morning.
The women is a *sshole.
Thank God the son inherited none of the mother’s idiot gene.
My son just started his second tour in Iraq last week. He’s in Baghdad for a few weeks then will be back somewhere in Al-Anbar with a Marine MTT unit. As much as I worry about him being there, I am even more proud of his service.
And as a father, I worry even when he is back home in California. You never know if some drunk driving illegal will cross his path.
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