Ok I am an American. I have seen my country go into a war based on lies, cooked intelligence, collusive press, or whatever reason we currently accept as the one that got us into the quagmire of Iraq. At 58 years of age, I should be thinking about retirement and planning on how my grandchildren will get into Ivy League colleges and where the wife and I will explore our dream worlds upon retirement. For me, those aren't options at this time, I was a dilettante as a youth, a radical in my late teens and early twenties, and held many different jobs during my life because of a lack formal education. Don't get it twisted, I am no dummy and have studied many disciplines and had a reasonably successful career as a computer salesman from the dawn of the industry through the millennium 2k industry meltdown, my zenith being an account executive for Gateway Computers during its heyday as a Fortune 500 Company. Above all else, I am an American and the thought of our kids being killed by the Taliban because we let Bush and Cheney fool us makes me feel like it's my responsibility to do something!
Having made the wrong call when Bush and Cheney took us to war in Iraq, I believe the day I made up my mind to support it was the day Colin Powell held up that bottle and said it contained the stuff they were making in those mobile units that he showed the drawings of at the United Nations. I supported Shock and Awe, even watched it on CNN when it went down, to the dismay of one of my younger cohorts who, like me, never believed much of what this government told us. We knew Bush stole the election and only felt anger toward any Muslim because the ones that bombed the World Trade Center on 9-11 took innocent lives, and when I saw film of Arabs dancing in the street in praise of the carnage I was ready to exact justice on the perpetrators. Needless to say I have opened my eyes since then to the carnage, the loss of our young soldiers, the many Iraqi casualties and the billions of dollars squandered on that conflict and feel ashamed to have been so blind as to what we Americans allowed.
So now, as I was reading the Huffington Post in preparation for the Biden/Palin debate, I ran across an article about the need for more troops in Afghanistan before the winter sets in. I think about it for a few minutes and get that feeling of 'fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me'. Commander for NATO International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, Gen. David D. McKiernan is saying that he needs up armored vehicles and additional troops for the main transportation line. I'm thinking, why don't we have enough soldiers there and if we don't, why aren't patriotic Americans volunteering to do so? We had a lot of so-called patriots want to go down to the border of Mexico and save us from the invasion from the south. Where are all the heroes and heroines who want to serve the country in the place where those who actually killed us lived and trained? I guess this is my James Stewart moment because I feel like joining the Army and offering to deploy to Kabul or wherever we go in Afghanistan to make sure our soldiers are safe and warm and fed and entertained. I could pull double duty too, not only can I drive anything from a VW beetle to a diesel, but I write and did fairly well as a standup comic in the hardest place in the world to get a laugh, Los Angeles.
Now the only problem I face is going down to the recruitment office and not have them laugh in my face when I volunteer to go to the Army and do my part as an American to really show our troops that we are serious about our caring about them. No one else seems to be ready to give up their flat screen TV and iPod world to DO Something! Ok, I may be having a John Wayne moment, thinking about the danger and knowing that I could face death or have to take a life to keep alive, but really, I have faced that living in Inglewood for the past 30 years. This is not a joke, as I watched when Sadaam was in power in Iraq the celebration of their wars and I would see old Iraqi men in uniform flogging themselves with chains and the like offering their lives for the honor of their country. They stuck in my mind over the years as clearly as the monks in Viet Nam who sat calmly and set themselves on fire to protest the occupation of their country when I was a teen.
Funny how life is; at 17, I went to the Army recruiting station to join to go to the war in Nam and was told that because I had one kidney that I could not filter enough water in the heat of Viet Nam and was discouraged from joining. But, by the time I was 18 I was so radical that I didn't even register for the draft and was arrested at my home, taken to the Selective Service office, given a 1A classification (meaning I was fit for duty) and told I could be imprisoned for having refused to register to which I said fuck you to the officer and waited for them to throw me in the brig which they didn't do. I came home and joined a radical group and set about the business of resisting the war effort and getting the people of my hometown to fight for the integration the law promised in 1964 but still eluded us in 68. After getting my head busted a few times and arrested for inciting to riot in 69, I had enough of New Orleans and moved out west, settled and raised a family. So this is where I find myself now, still defiant, still cognizant that I live under a dictator yet still willing to offer myself up for the cause of saving my fellow Americans from being the only ones in the fight when the shit hit the fan. But I have to wonder, WHERE ARE THE PATRIOTS in this country? Are we all just in it for the money?