I also thought it was interesting that she took what I thought was a very minority view here at LOB (time for a snit poll?): we exercise privileges because of the misery of others. Woah! I thought we'd concluded that, in reality, u.s. life sucks in spite of the misery of others around the globe?
Besides that, what do you do with any of it. What does that mean for her? How does she go about her daily life? Can she live with herself without pointing out everyone's moral failing? If she doesn't isn't she just as morally irresponsible as the person working for Northrup Grummons on a mil contract?
What does the essay ask us to do -- exactly? How does it translate into political practice? Does it mean we start holding individual soldiers accountable at demos--instead of Shrubya, et al.? Do I dump my partner, friends, family because they were/are in the service? I suppose I should cut my dad off.
You leave this essay thinking that the therapist is=-=what?--an asshole because she's married to a vet? And who the fuck is this person to say she aboslutely knows what wakes someone up in the middle of the night, in terror? How does _she_ know that the therapist's husband was reponsible for anything in the service?
That essay was just idiotic.
I shipped my "other son" off to boot camp in November. Back when I had a job, I told Joanna I was trying to get him to move in with us. He was $7k in debt and the sign up bonuses would mean he could get out from under the debt. He'd dropped out of high school, to take advantage of some vocational equivalency and get training as a mechanic. Since then, he's only found work making, max, $10/hr at places like Goodyear.
He's a good kid. He is in no way some brawny macho beer-drinking stereotype that might exist in some folks' fantasies. He got to be "my other son" when he befriended sonshine after we moved to "the ghetto." He was three years old than sonshine but they became fast friends, along with with two girls in the 'hood. When he left, he brought sonshine a homemade picture frame with a picture of the two of them he'd taken the day before at the going away get together.
He's sentimental and sweet and completely devoted to any girl he's ever dated. He's polite and helpful and when sonshine got in the car accident, he was right there, even though we hadn't seen him for months because moving away made it difficult to get together. When he visited the hospital the first time, he brought me a cup of coffee and a snack -- only 18 and had a thought for someone other than himself. I thought it pretty astonishing that an 18 year odl would think of something like that.
Yes, he thinks Kerry was an asshole and calls himself a Republican. But, it's skin deep stuff -- he really doesn't know the issues. And, I'd imagine he'd be hard pressed to know what they are otherwise. He doesn't think we should be in Iraq but he does think it's important to fight terr'sm. He hopes to go into the Special Forces, I kid you not.
For him, war really is a distant reality. Even now. When I asked him if his mother was worried, like me, he said his mother came to terms with it when an uncle said: "He'll have a better chance of staying safe by joining now. Who knows if there'll be a draft?"
I begged and pleaded with him to stay here -- it was reasonable beggin and pleading, though I did cry his last day. But, by then, I couldn't offer him much of a future since I'd been laid off. Perhaps if I hadn't, he'd still be here.
Oh. Right. I should go beat myself with a cat o' nine now since, as well all now, I was also responsible for getting laid off.
As I said at the outset: what use is this essay? Of what practical, political use is it?