Tim, Maybe You're In A Better Place
Our World Is Becoming More Complicated and Disturbing By the Day
It's probably best that you aren't down here on earth for yet another birthday, because the war you gave your life for is raging stronger than ever, showing no signs of a peaceful end to the senseless killing. We're in our eighth year waging war on Iraq. Who knows when or how the two sides can reach some kind of solution. This is like watching Viet Nam all over again.
I have argued with individuals, both online and off, who tell me that I should be ashamed of myself for protesting the war. "You're supposed to cheer them all on; not shouting your disdain that soldiers in your country and ours." I reply, "No good can come of war. There are no victors. Young men and women are dying by the hundreds and for what? Oil? The supposed build-up of dirty bombs?"
It's an argument that cannot be won on either side. In the 1980's, that insane president Reagan was babbling on about a "Star Wars Initiative." In a nutshell, he wanted to fight wars in space. The Soviet Union was still going strong and showed little sign of ending anytime soon. I swear that lunatic must have been suffering early Alzheimer's to even postulate such nonsense.
Tim, as I told you, I was a card-carrying member of the anti-war activist group, Plowshares. This name came from a famous passage: "We must grind our weapons into plowshares," which work peacefully in the wake of a terrible battle. I went to Toronto in 1983 to protest the Litten Plant, which, we discovered, was making guidance systems for Cruise Missiles. We got tossed in a bus and taken downtown. It was scary, but not as dire as nuclear war.
I support our troops coming home. When will this happen? When you engaged in "Desert Storm" the war may have been very short, but it messed with your mind. You recruits were trained to kill. Trained to do battle with enemy soldiers no different from you or I.
So, even if this day, April 23rd, causes your loved ones to revisit that dark place and mourn all over again, there is the knowledge that you died as a prisoner of war.
