[lit-ideas] Re: Willie Pete's Role Reversal
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 13:58:43 -0500
---- Original Message -----
From:
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 11/12/2005 1:18:55 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Willie Pete's Role Reversal
MOST of the young men and women (and even middle-aged men and women) who are in
Iraq really ARE trying to protect the civilians and to set up the stage so that
the Iraqis can have self-rule, etc.
A.A. How are they doing this?
I keep thinking of my son's bus driver whose son is in Iraq, my other friend
whose son just left, the man whose two sons were there--and knowing that each
of those boys would die for an Iraqi civilian to save him/her from an
insurgent.
A.A. I'm not so sure about that. They died because they got hit by an
insurgent. Are you suggesting they sacrificed themselves? Seems to me charity
begins at home. Shades of Koenigsberg, if our boys are so sacrificeable, what
does life mean?
My son may very likely be there one day along with many of his friends.
A.A. Those were the predictions before the invasion, that it would take a
decade or even much longer to get out.
NOT because they think the war is 'just' but because it would give them a venue
to help clean up our mess. I know them. They care
A.A. Care about what? Sacrificing themselves? No wonder the world is a mess.
and they would NOT be running around in speedos...
A.A. Uh, Marlena, he wasn't serious. They're not really running around in
Speedos. Or shooting goats.
(tell that to the parents of the kids who were killed because of lack of armor
on their vehicles. Or the fact that there were not even very many Humvees even
OVER there for a long long time...)
I wish you could meet some of these young ones. I know that they want the
families of Iraq to go back to being able to live 'regular lives' such as they
themselves have had (though without the fear that their family members might
disappear to satisfy Saddam's latest purge)
A.A. The irony of it all. There can be no regular lives as long as our boys
are sacrificing themselves. No good deed goes unpunished ...
Andy
Hoping my dismay will settle down so that I can write a more literary or
philosophical essay on this,
Marlena in Missouri
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