In hearing that nine soldiers died yesterday as a result of a suicide car-bomb, it brings me back to the Virginia Tech convocation in which one of the religious leaders invited to speak at it, asked for a moment of silence from those gathered at it.
I am asking all of you who read this piece today that you take a few minutes of your busy life and do the same for our nine soldiers. As I have stated previously until congress has the temerity to end this war, all flags should remain at half-staff as our men and women in the armed services continue to die. Yes, their deaths do matter and must matter.
As I was reading Congressman Ron Paul’s Texas Straight talk piece he wrote, “Thanks to our media and many government officials, Americans have become conditioned to view the state as our protector and the solution to every problem.”
Now when it comes to our governmental officials having any power to protect the lives of Americans, this is where I do find they have the power and should step up to the plate. Many of us do see this war as being a problem and we have often looked to government as the solution. Hey, they started it and they can end it.
Paul goes onto say, “Whenever something terrible happens, especially when it becomes a national news story, people reflexively demand that government do something. This impulse almost always leads to bad laws and the loss of liberty. It is completely at odds with the best American traditions of self-reliance and rugged individualism.” Can anyone spell Patriot Act? Can anyone spell out the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which stripped our Constitution of Habeas Corpus?
Who will mourn these soldier’s deaths? Will the media provide us all with wall-to-wall coverage in discussing their deaths as it has done with Virginia Tech? These men and women have stepped up to the plate for all of us and were going off to a battle field instead of a college campus.
As Americans scream out for gun control, the deaths of our nine soldiers prove lives can be taken in another manner. In fact many of the innocent Iraqis we have killed who deserved to live as our Virginia Tech students were not killed with guns and bullets, but by these same devices. So as we scream to protect the lives of Americans; who is screaming to protect the lives of innocent Iraqis? Many of them were going through their daily lives, but unlike Virginia Tech students, they have know all too well during these past four years, their lives could be taken in an instant.
In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre, many railed against the NRA (National Rifle Association); shouldn’t Americans be railing against the government or various think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute when it comes to the lives of our nine soldiers cut down in a split second?
This suicide bomber who took the lives of our soldiers was just as dangerous as Cho-Seung-Hui who also took his own life as he brutally killed others. If this suicide bomber had made a tape prior to this suicide attack; I wonder if the media would have the guts to show the reason for his attack. Would they? Nah!
As the media invited on every expert conceivable to help Americans understand how Cho could do this; shouldn’t they be looking into the mindset of suicide bombers and what may lead them to cause as many deaths as possible? Me, I think that they are afraid of doing so. It could lead back to our own government’s lie and series of lies that led to our invasion into Iraq. No, no, no, the media will not speak of that. But, they can endlessly dissect the mental state of Cho to help us better understand the mind of that killer.
Last week what we saw were prayer sessions held for the victims of Virginia Tech across this country. We also saw candle-light vigils in their memory. Isn’t it about time we do so when every soldier loses his or her life? I ask of my readers to light a candle or nine candles if you have them at some point today in honor of our soldiers.
On a local news channel last night, I watched the coffin of one Virginia Tech victim being carried into a funeral service and perhaps our media should do the same for every soldier that comes home to their final resting place. Perhaps through this visual we as Americans can rally to a deafening scream directed at our elected officials especially the Bush administration to finally end this war.
After the Virginia Tech massacre, we slowly came to know the faces of those whose lives were cut down by an act of a gunman. We came to know their names, what their lives were like during a memorial service held this past weekend. Shouldn’t the media do the same for our fallen soldiers? What were their names? What were their lives like prior to being sent over to this war?
A father of a Virginia Tech victim said she loved shoes and was probably the one that started the rave on Converse sneakers and that she loved to read. He was putting the human face on this tragedy. I would like to know if any of these nine soldiers had a personal story that Americans could relate to.
Many in law enforcement will use the names of kidnap victims to personalize them to their abductors so they see them as being human beings. Instead of just lumping together these nine soldiers; shouldn’t the use of their names be used in order to personalize their loss as our government continues to send them over to their deaths?
As many watched the Virginia Tech convocation, we saw President Bush along with the First Lady, Laura Bush in attendance. We heard him speak out of these victims deaths, yet this president has never seen fit to attend one memorial service of any of our fallen soldiers. I guess their deaths mean nothing to him. His stubbornness to keep us over in Iraq is proof in the pudding. I wonder how the family members of these nine soldiers are feeling today. Will there be any televised memorial or convocation to honor their lives?
We have heard from ugly human beings such as Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh opine that the deaths of those at Virginia Tech should be blamed on liberals. Yet, the lives of over 3,200 soldiers can be blamed on the Neoconservatives that started this war. Take that Gingrich and Limbaugh. Your political compadres started a war that has taken the lives of America’s blood and treasure and yet the both of you dare lecture liberals? I am just waiting for another miscreant like Ann Coulter to opine on the deaths of these nine soldiers. Don’t bother, Ann, because many are sick of listening to you as well.
America should be in a constant state of mourning as we continue to hear of our soldiers dying overseas. They too leave behind families to grieve a lifetime. If they have small children or children at all, they will never get to see them off to any college.
In closing, I will include a poem written by Henry Scott Holland which I sent to the Virginia Tech news paper in honor of their victims and I will use this same poem in honor of our slain soldiers.
Death is nothing at all,
I have only slipped away into the next room,
I am I and you are you;
Whatever we were to each other, That we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name,
Speak to me in the easy way which you always used,
Put no difference in your tone,
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we shared together.
Let my name ever be the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant,
It is the same as it ever was, there is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner.
All is well.
Author’s note: You can contact me at this email address, xmjmac@optonline.net
