California Conservative

“Shame on us, with our soft paper-pushing hands and our hammocks and sprinklers. We expect the men and women of this country who do the job that we won’t do to create a united front in a foreign land, when we can’t muster one here at home. Shame on those of us who think we can simultaneously question the very purpose of the war and still be supporting the men and women who do the job that we won’t do.”

Tonight, I sit on my front porch, listening to the sprinkler’s gentle patter, the flag fluttering softly on a late May breeze. I have a cigar, my dog, and a comfortable hammock. Inside, my family is safe– the girls tucked in for the night, my wife watching television.

I realize it’s daytime now in Iraq, where men and women of my country numbering in the hundreds of thousands, do work that I have chosen not to do. Granted, I will be 40 next week, but if I told you that I’d have enlisted at the age of 25, I’d probably be lying. This is a simple, undeniable truth. I’d like to fancy myself a man of great physical courage and bravery, but I can’t promise that this would be true.

So I listen to my sprinkler while men and women of my country listen to gunfire, people screaming in foreign tongues, and assorted other sounds that I can’t imagine. And though they’ve never met me, they do this job for me, and for my family. It is a reality that makes me uncomfortable: I feel as if I the ship is sinking and I’ve been given a seat on the first lifeboat.

That there has been debate about the War in Iraq is an understatement. It has been a vicious, partisan argument, with accusations of corruption, treason, and disregard for human life. The men and women of my country who do the job in Iraq that I won’t do must hear this debate. I wonder what they think.

They know that the debate does not make the bullets fly any less true or the bombs explode with less shrapnel. It would have been nice, once the debate about Iraq surfaced, if all combatants agreed to use only fists to avoid unnecessary deaths while the true purpose of the war was being hashed out. But death is not impressed with controversy.

So, the tragic result of the debate is that the men and women of my country who do the job that I won’t do now face death with less clarity of purpose, less certainty of rightness. They’ve been sent to an away game without the cheerleading squad yet with the knowledge that half the school doesn’t care if they win, and might even secretly hope that they lose.

Shame on us, with our soft paper-pushing hands and our hammocks and sprinklers. We expect the men and women of this country who do the job that we won’t do to create a united front in a foreign land, when we can’t muster one here at home. Shame on those of us who think we can simultaneously question the very purpose of the war and still be supporting the men and women who do the job that we won’t do.

It is Memorial Day. Around this country, people remember soldiers who gave their lives for our way of life. It is a day that has new, monumental significance for the families of some 2,500 men and women who died in Iraq doing the job the rest of us wouldn’t do. As they struggle with incomprehensible grief, as they visit cemeteries, shame on us if they have even the slightest doubt as to the nobility of their sacrifice.

Courage is fear that has said its prayers, or so the saying goes. Tonight, I offer the prayers of one family for the men and women of our country who willingly put their lives on the line to ensure that the rest of us can debate, and listen to sprinklers.

Submitted by Potfry

This entry was posted on Monday, May 29th, 2006 at 7:24 am and is filed under History, Military, Op-Ed, Patriotism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.