Andrea Gibson at the 2006 poetry slam, performing "For Eli"
Fu** Your Yellow Ribbon.
A Special Thanks to Information Clearinghouse
for bringing such quality media to our attention.
Take it from a Veteran of the USMC, all the flag waving and lip service in the world will never return the men and women that left in the service of their country to the families they left behind.
In a local bread shop, the attendant seeing my Marine Corps ball cap asked me, "What do they teach you guy's in the Marine Corps? After one tour in Iraq, I don't even know my little brother any more. He can't even go into Walmart without flipping out. All he talks about is killing and death." I was stunned. I said, "They teach us to kill whoever is shooting at us."
And then after teaching us this "skill", they drop us into the middle of some god forsaken place where they have pissed everyone off to attract their fire, thus it becomes self-preservation.
And I can tell you this, as well. Once you kill a man, it is difficult to ever see mankind as anything other than drossy chattel again.
And then they label us anti-social. The very architects of the "kill or be killed" mentality label us, their dupes, their pawns, their mercenaries, as anti-social.
And "Support the Troops" car magnets, lapel pins, signs, and such make me sick. Because it fosters the atmosphere in which these atrocities are born.
If you really want to support our troops, bring them home NOW. And don't ever send them off to the battlefield again. If our nation is physically attacked, we would all likely take up arms in our defense. And this is as it should be! But to go picking fights...
the frustration leaves me speechless. Killing is serious business with serious ramifications to all who are left behind. And permanent ramifications for the dead and those who did the killing.
