| athoughtortwo.com |
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| a thought or two blog by Maurice Emery
Ramblings and ruminations about life after 60
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| Action needed now to save nations young people | |||||
| Published in the Littleton Observer: 050207 | |||||
| If you have read my columns over the years you know there are certain things that just set me off. One of these areas is the killing of our young whether it is through street crime, school massacres or wars. This past couple of weeks has been extremely difficult to deal with. I didn’t address the situation last week because after three rough drafts I was still unsure of how to relate my feelings. To some degree I was so mad that I just started to verbal vomit in writing. After two weeks it is business as usual on the news networks. During this same two-week period 59 service men and women have lost their lives. April has proven to be the one of the deadliest months of the war. These deaths are only reported on the news as almost passing comments. The exception may be the one case where nine men from the 82nd Airborne Division of Fort Bragg were killed at one time. Apparently the killings at Virginia Tech (VT) have lost their value as a television news ratings driver. They haven’t lost their value to the families and friends who now have to live in the aftermath. We know many of their names and to some degree they have been part our lives even if for no other reason than to pray for them. If you have lost a loved one suddenly from any accident or event this situation has probably tugged at your heart a little more than other deaths. Reports of the deaths of our service people have been muted or limited from the national news for months. This is nothing new. The military and the President do not want you to start to have the same feelings you may have had from the VT incident. From the start of the war there have been only a few times when the public has witnessed the flag-draped caskets coming back from the war. The most noteworthy of these was a photograph of a plane loaded with flag-draped caskets. The last I heard, and I cannot verify it, was that the young photographer lost his job over the picture. The problem with all these deaths is that there is not more being done about the causes. Although Virginia has quickly passed a bill that requires people who have been declared to have certain mental problems to be put on a list and not be able to buy guns. As far as other suggestions are concerned little is even being considered. When people speak up and try to say or do something they are given a variety of reasons why their suggestion is not workable. One of the two most common responses is that a specific suggestion is not the right place to start. Everybody seems to have staked out their territory for each area that is mentioned as a possibility for being changed. This makes it difficult to even start to find ways to make a difference in finding ways, no matter how small, to ensure our young ones a safer life. Today’s younger generation has grown up with the knowledge that ten years after the Columbine shootings we have still not found a way to take action when there is a possibility that someone will do something just as horrendous. I pray that ten years from now we will not be faced with a similar tragedy. When it comes to our military presence in Iraq the people have spoken and they are not being heard by our President. The most mentioned argument against the most recent legislation trying to place some limits on the war is that the timetable in the bill will be helping the enemy. Let’s face the facts. The Sunni and shi’ites have been fighting for hundreds of years. They have no plans of settling their differences until one or the other wins. The suggestion that any timetable we might mention is helping the enemy is ridiculous. They are going to continue fighting one another no matter what we do. They know Americans do not have the same animosity and hate in them as others in the world apparently do. Make no mistake this does not mean we are weak. We have shown the world time and again that when it comes time to protect our freedom we respond fast and decisively. Because Americans do not have the animosity and hate that it takes to keep on killing, as people in other parts of the world already know, we will not stick around forever when two warring factions in the same country want to continue to kill one another. Some people are trying to make us believe that if a timetable for pulling out of this war is established that the enemy will gain some type of advantage. These same people do not seem to understand that the fighting has been going on for hundreds of years. No matter how often they seem to get along, when the situation presents itself they will always go back to fighting one another. For them a timetable has no real meaning, because they will wait for generations if needed. In the meantime they will continue to kill one another and anyone else that may get in their way. Just by saying we will not stay over there forever is in effect a timetable for them. So declaring specific time of withdrawal over an ambiguous time will not have an impact on what they do. When it comes to protecting the lives of our young ones we cannot accept these excuses. No matter what the obstacles we must still try to find ways to stop the killings. We owe it to future generations. |
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