So yeah, Student teaching

It's been forever

Currently Listening Harem By Sarah Brightman, Frank Peterson The War is Over see related

My friend Beth spent some time with a certain soldier named Brian Anderson who has recently returned home to Chicago. Upon seeing me Beth embraced me in a tight hug. Depending on how much you know about young Brian, this will be an understood response. Beth had the privilege of spending time with Brian. He lost both his legs and an arm to a roadside bomb in Iraq. He is symbolic in the eyes of many as a survivor, and what every family member fears next to death for their soldier.

I have a mixture of feelings ranging from admiration, sorrow, respect, and I think in the gamut, the most out of place in the bunch in my opinion, triumph. I think that any young man or woman (Tammy Duckworth) who over comes such odds, who clings to life in that way and goes on to take aim at various goals, be they as humble as walking again, or as ambitious as Congress deserves more respect than many of the people I see who are able-bodied. I do not mean this to be an insult to the complete idiots like myself out there (all parts are still attached and functional), but I know people who lose a limb and or go through a near death experience and do not recover. The fact that they are carving a life for themselves like so many others who go unannounced in the news or the media is truly deserving of admiration. This is one of the cases which I believe was duly covered in the media, and young Mr. Anderson himself was overwhelmed with his welcome home reception at O’Hare Airport. While I do not think that his welcome home was in any way shape or form unwarranted or undeserved, I do question why this one soldier and not every other soldier that fights for our so called freedom (If this does not utterly betray my paradoxical feelings on the situation, I do not know what will convey my angst pertaining to this issue). Why is it that on of several thousand wounded gets such a prestigious welcome home, and so many more are left unacknowledged, forsaken and tucked in the depths of the armpit of today’s politics? Why is it that there are so many dead and every one I read about is a dagger in the heart of a mother, or wife, or father, or husband or myself, but there is no collective mourning, only blind selfish outrage?

While I conversely respect the right for everyone to mourn privately, or celebrate the homecoming of a loved one from the modern battlefield, I also question why do we also hold the same isolationist wishing to crawl into our own shell while the rest of the world gets screwed over. From my own skewed uneducated perspective, I think that pulling out would be reckless, selfish, and egregiously shortsighted; I think that if we do not hold the Iraqis responsible for their own government and their own security, the U.S. will be there for the rest of my life, and well enough, the life of my generation’s future children. Now if only the supposed leadership of the world would pull their head from their fourth point of contact and come up with some sort of attainable goals which will hopefully conceive some manner of rectifying the sorry state the world is in? I do not see the plan being something that could be done in a few short years. Like so many years go I heard someone say “this is something that will last eight to ten years of not longer”, we are ever in this for the long haul. So why is it that we have a half-hearted recognition of the valiant few who commit to some manner of action? Why is it that we give a sole “at-a-boy” to the brave few who will put their lives on the line for what has deteriorated into an illusion, and then discard them to the wayside? Why do we convince ourselves that if we celebrate one wounded young man with the brass balls to not quit on life, do we conceive to make up for a thousand other wounded maimed and brain-damaged which we have not given their due respect and commendations which do not fall under the purview of some Department of Defense regulation?

I’m just saying….

P.S. Have you ever had such a strong physical reaction to a song you have heard before three dozen or more times that when the mood is right, your thoughts deviate in the right direction and the song pierces your emotional core in such a way that the word, or notes are truth made manifest? When I was typing this up, the song below came on and I was suddenly shaking, weak, and every hair on my body was standing perpendicularly from my skin in such a way that the muscle tension was as undeniable as the passion with which you kiss the one person who means the most in the world to you.