Outnumbered, Outgunned

theres a dead horse...let me beat it

"go to extraordinary lengths so that we get to sit back and hide behind our computers screens in the comfort of our homes in a land where we have the freedom to bad mouth the people who keep us free."

My comment is this...I am neither saying it ananymously, nor am I doing it from the dark room behind a coputer screen. Simply put I am putting it on my blog, while I view my blog as personal, and not all that interesting to the world, I am not so naive to think that I talk into a vaccuum. I knew what I was saying. I really did. I knew I was saying it in public.

I thank the troops for protecting my freedom. Is that what there doing in Iraq? Protecting my freedom? Now we get into that shitty area of politics, but I ask you, military gf or wife or fiance, are your men and women protecting my freedom in Iraq?

If you can look me in the eye, or on the web, and tell me they are, and show me how, then I have will bow to this.

You dont know me, but I thank all the veterans of all the wars when I see them. Even Storm, episode one, and now Iraq episode 2. I will not burden them with my opinion, they have nightmares about killing people, and there friends being killed. My opinion in a man who lives in a world that heavy is totally meaningless. I cannot carry there jock strap. They are heavy people, I am a light weight in comparision.

But do not confuse respect for the man, with respect for the uniform. Your boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife is a good person, soldiers are doing bad things.

I know you love one, and so you cannot accept the designation. I dont care so much about that. I know no one in Iraq. Young men and women from my community have gone and died. 42 to be exact from my home county. I weep for them. I have EMOTIONAL DISTANCE enough to be able to do that, to weep the person, while cursing the soldier.

Dont you see SOLDIER is not yours. It is really not yours. SOLDIERS are doing bad things. In the name of war. In the name of god knows what. Your fiance is not doing bad things, or maybe he is. I dont know. Maybe yoru boyfriend is taking pictures with dead fathers of Iraqi children. Using dead Iraqi soldiers for target practice. Are these not fathers and husbands? I am sure there not. There just targets.

"It's not because we don't care; in fact, the opposite is true. We care so much that if we don't distance ourselves, the pain would eat us alive."

If the men who took my father away after he had died made gallows humor jokes about him, they were wrong. The people that you care for are deserving of dignity. They are deserving of respect. Your mockery of other humans is a horrid example of our need to distance ourselves. Just shut your fucking mouth. That fat ladyh who died in her house, 500 pounds skin grown to the couch...yeah she is a mother and a wife. And people cry for her death. You want to go back to the firehouse and laugh and make jokes because all you want to do is cry, well then I say this...cry. Just fucking cry. be a leader in your fucking profession and fucking cry.

The day my Dad died I punch a cop in the mouth. Not because he told a bad story or joke, but he said something that was an emotional mistaken sentence. He meant nothing by it, and you know I should have been understanding of his job and his youth...but you know what...fuck that...I dont have to acqueisce to his stupidity. I dont have to conceed that gallows humor is a part of the job for firefighters or EMTS or PARAMEDICS, or cops or soldiers. Its not okay. Mocking that which you kill is not okay.

Fucking Ted Nugent teaches this at his hunting camps for fucks sake. Respect for that which you kill.

I gotta quote Ted Nugent?

"they are normal people who aren't always given the chance to process and cope with what they have done or seen."

I dont care. Take it up with the bosses who put them there. Rich white men put them in the desert, and there being put in terrible situations. And there doing bad things. They signed up for this. Poverty, college fund, psycopaths...whatever....these young men are not warriors. There gang members, and the leader of there gang is a coked out texan and his LT has a bad heart, and there all following the divine rule of Ralph fucking Reed.

"How dare people sit in in the safety and splendor of this country and castigate those they can't even hope to understand. It makes my heart both heavy and furious."

I have a couple of responses to this one...

I thanked my grandfather for fighting in WW2. I cared for my Uncle Georgey who lost his mind in WW2.

First thing...Has the america way of life been threatened? Has there ever been an army moving on this country? Does it even appear that there are forces at work here in the midwest looking to enslave americans, and turn us into Communists, or killing us for not being Muslims? Is this Red dawn, and am I Patrick Swayze looking for Stacey keach?

Second...Dont read my blog. I am sorry. I know its the internet, and I know I am publishing my thoughts. I came here to get away from the judgement of readers. But it appears I have more readers now, and more commenters. Which is cool. You want to have a dialogue with me about why supporting the troops is right, then lets have a dialogue. But just dont tell me I am wrong because they are people doing things that are beyond my comprehension. I thought about that already. I comprehended what I was saying by saying I dont support soldiers. I did not think I would lose a friend of 5 years over saying it, but I said it. I gotta own that. I cannot go back in time. I have to be accountable for my actions.

Like soldiers need to be accountable for there actions.

Castigate...I am not castigating anyone. I just said I dont support them. Shit I dont support pro football, but that does not mean it does not exist. I am not fighting to get there benefits taken away, or trials for war criminals, or whatever. I am just turning my back on them. They dont me. They have a country full of red state conservatives cheering for them. One guy in Wisconsin, heck he dont matter a lick.

Brett Farve lost his fourth game for the Packers tonight...I dont support him being the starter next game. See how much pull I have?

I am talking about this on my BLOG. I am not talking about it when speaking to the paper, nor am I talking about it at work. I am talking about it on MY BLOG. My blog.

Later on in my blog I will be writing long essays about the Parker Jotter, and how I dont use powder on my nuts when it is summer. These times dont lend me a lot of significance.

But then again, maybe it is my responsibility to speak out. No it is not. It is not. It is the mothers and fathers of dead soldiers, it is the vengeful sons and daughters of the Iraqi dead mocked who will speak out. not me.

I will actually be the one fighting for US Military men to have the right to blog or say whatever they want when they get home. See my job is in free speech, in provinding a forum for all views.

So your soldier wants to get on the airwaves and talk, or in the papers and talk, and he lives in Wisconsin, have him call me, I can get that done.

"These soldiers are good men; good men who have witnessed horrific things...they don't walk away unscathed and that is what makes them human. Not what causes them to lose their humanity."

Your soldier joined up. Volunteered.

They do witness terrible things. They have no right to do horrible things. None.

"If you think the soldiers are monsters, fine, you sit up with my soldier through the nights when he has terrors."

You want me to hold your mans hand, or let him talk it out, or go for a walk, or put on protective gear and let him beat the crap out of someone...give me a call. Seriously. I will put my money where my mouth is. I will sit there and be quiet and listen to everything he has to say, and I will cry real tears with him. or I wont if he does not want me to. But I will sit there and respect the man, and the pain he is in. The pain caused to him.

In private, away from the man, if you tell me he was one of the men who did the bad things I continiously see...then I will in private and never in front of the man think to myself that he was wrong.

And then I will put my feelings aside as they are irrelevant and walk in front of your man and offer my help with all of my resources.

But you ask me to support the tragic things that these young men and women are doing. I wont.

Once a Iraqi or Afghani or whoever is dead, just leave them alone. There dead.

I am tired. I want to go to sleep.

I thank you soldier for defending my way of life. I wish you would stop doing these bad things I keep reading about. I hope you make it home okay.

Posted by Radiofree at October 4, 2005 03:26 AM | TrackBack