more rantings on the war.

at the moment, the war is very much on my mind. and everything i think about it makes me count and thank my lucky stars that i'm not living in the midwest or some other part of the country where i would be lynched as a traitor for these thoughts.

and here's the thought of the hour: apparently, once upon a time, there was some dignity in being a soldier, particularly an american soldier. when they were the armies of the mighty, the armies of the light, the armies of freedom, liberating entire continents under the thumb of a failed artist bent on genocide. that was something. that was an endeavor you could believe in. now what comes to mind when you think of a soldier? crazy vietnam vets, sick and disabled. victims of the first gulf war, floored by the syndrome named after the vast sweeps where their minds finally broke. veterans from korea, not sick or broken enough to forget that they were on the losing side. scared little boys. people who think that dubya bush is going to be the salvation of that country. buzz cuts, pickup trucks and little plastic flags.

that's what i think of when i think of soldiers.

and i wish more than anything that i didn't. i wish more than anything that i could regard the boys on the front line in the way that i romanticize those who fought in the great wars, in any of the wars that i would legitimately classify as worth fighting, as any of our business. because i know there's no difference between the two. war is a sickness, a skirmish fought by the young and the weak on behalf of those waging it from behind their fortress walls. it's a farce. and it always has been. the children doing the dirty work of the old and powerful. so why can't i respect what we're doing now, why can't i respect them, the way i respect those that have come before?

because that is the only thing about this war and my opinion of it that makes me feel traitorious, makes me feel "unamerican," if you will. i don't give a flying fuck that i don't believe in what we're doing. i'll yell that from the mountaintops with a megaphone and a skywriter. I DON"T BELIEVE THAT THIS WAR IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO. what bothers me is that i don't think i believe in the people we've sent to fight it.

and that, my possums, makes me feel terrible.