I sent out an e-mail a while ago to remind people that I am alive and to bring to their attention my web page. I told them if they still wanted to be on my email list, then send an email back. If they did not want to be on my list, then to not bother replying at all…I would simply remove their name if I did not hear from them. I received this email from a friend that I went to high school with that is stationed in Iraq, and although we have not communicated in a couple years, I thought maybe at first he was kidding in his reply. The last sentence of his email is what tipped me off to the fact that he was serious. Here's his e-mail:
“I would like to think that you were joking mostly because I, nor anyone else, forced you to fly over seas and fight a war that I don't condone. I am sorry that our president went to war to pad his bank account (considering that he stands to make almost 900 million dollars personally, through business deals, by the liberation of Iraq). I am sorry that you joined the military, no doubt thinking that you would spend your time in duty, see the world, and then come out with them paying for your education…or one of the other many benefits that the government offers for serving our country. I am sorry that you seem so bitter about being in a war zone, and rightly so…since we shouldn’t even be in a war zone anyway. I am sorry that you deal with the crap that you deal with on a regular basis. But mostly I am sorry that you are serving a president that couldn’t care less about your well being, and lives of thousands upon thousands of soldiers…because it will never affect him, his daughters, or anyone else in his family. The war won’t even affect his friends because it certainly isn’t any of them that are sending their kids over there, and that is why they can send soldiers so readily: Their decisions will never affect themselves.
“Here at home I am thankful that there are people that will join the military because I don’t want to. It’s not me or who I am. The prospect of killing someone is something I don’t want to have to deal with. That being said, I think it is something that happens and arguably needs to happen on the rarest of all occasions. That certainly doesn’t mean that it should happen anytime we have a despot in power who has the means to produce “WMD” and a hatred for America because countries like those are a dime a dozen. There are a lot of countries that have leadership that hates America and the means to produce nuclear weapons, but we aren’t attacking them now are we? And we never will until our President stands to make money off of those countries.
“We didn’t go to war to liberate a people, or remove a dictator, or eliminate a threat to our fair country. All three of those things exist in many other countries, and we allow it to happen because we don’t stand to benefit by stepping in. The atrocities and genocide that happens in Africa every day dwarfs the sort of things that happened in Iraq, but then again…they don’t produce oil in Africa so we don’t need to worry about them. Nothing good ever came from Africa anyway, right? I mean except all the millions of people that die every year at the hands of dictators and despots far worse than Saddam Hussein, but I guess those people don’t matter.
“The Roman Empire once was the largest empire to date. They got that way by going into territories and putting a military presence there, then telling the residents that they could do whatever they wanted. They could have their own religions, their own customs, even their own government, but at the end of the day they reported back to the Roman government. The people and their government were ultimately subject to the will of the Roman Empire. Hmmm…large military presence, set up their own government, still subject to United States…sounds like we’re building an empire here. Rome wasn’t built in a day, it didn’t fall in a day, but it took a long process of a few hundred years that was capped by greed and corruption. Sounds like we’re on our way out.
“To put the record straight, although I have a problem with killing people so that our oil prices are cheaper, and I don’t like the fact that there are soldiers over there doing that right now, I don’t hate the soldiers…I just feel sorry for them for being the product of a greedy, dirty, underhanded, shady, non-caring administration that is ready to send someone else’s kids off to war. I apologize if you feel like no one cares about you over there because the American people do, but some of us are just tired of the people that are so willing to send you to your death. I apologize if you feel like I don’t care about you over there because I sit and whine about my miniscule problems while you deal with life or death situations: my website is, after all, intended for entertainment and not so much to show the world “how bad I have it.” My life is pretty easy comparatively. I apologize that Bush is our president because I am very sorry I even voted for him four years ago. But most of all, I apologize for paying taxes to support a government that doesn’t even care about you. So I am sorry for supporting the circumstances that endanger your life everyday.”
My friend had his thumb shot practically off in Iraq. I feel bad that this happened, but I have no way of knowing what he went through while he was in Iraq. In fact, as I have stated I don't want to know. He has had 7 surgeries in the two months since it happened, and still has three or four more to go. I would not be angry about such a thing happening to a good friend of mine if he had done it protecting his fellow soldiers in a war that was worth something. Instead he lost mobility of his opposable digit on his dominant hand, protecting his fellow man in a war that should not have happened…at all.
I realize there are worse things in life than getting stuck behind a bad driver, but I also know that the draft is not instated, therefore you volunteered for such awful things. So, if it’s not what you expected, I’m sorry, but don’t get bitter with me…I’m not the enemy. Take it out on the enemy, the one that doesn’t care about you, the one that sends you to the frontline on a whim, the one that uses you for personal gain...all of this much like the Iraqi insurgents: George W. Bush.
I haven’t heard a reply…not sure why. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut, but I just don’t know how to do that.
Thanks for stopping by...I know I sure enjoyed.