Drip, Drip, Drip...
Because I live where the steel mills used to be, there are two sets (Norfolk Southern and CSX) of railroad tracks I cross every day to get to work. They're busy tracks, with at least four trains a hour passing through, and sometimes trains every five or ten minutes. Most of the trains consist of coal cars traveling full from West Virginia to the electric plants in Ohio and empty back again, or container trains, or car transport trains to the local Fisher Body/GM plant. But every now and then you see a train with more visual cargo, like John Deere tractors, or raw Canadian timber, or even the circus train.
Yesterday I was walking home from the grocery store on the service road between the tracks and the retail stores, when I heard the rails sing and the crossing bells go off as another train approached from the west. I admit to being a bit of a rail buff; I always look to see what engines are pulling, the reporting marks on the cars, the type of cargo, and wonder where it's going and where it's been. Yesterday the flat cars bore the mark DODX. Department of Defense. On each flat car, about 35 in all, were strapped two brand new M1A2 tanks, painted desert tan, red kangaroo emblems on a small box near each hatch.
I cried. The tears welled in my eyes and all I could think was that people were going to die in those tanks, on those tanks, from those tanks. People were going to die for no very good reason at all in the middle of a civil war that we didn't begin 1400 years ago and that we can never end, all for the sake of ego and pride and making sure that the dictators in power belong to US and not THEM, however the THEM is designated to be this month.
Drip, drip, drip. One death at a time, two deaths a day maybe. The casualties come in drips in this Police Action, not in big media-friendly soundbites. There aren't any pictures in this war, notice? If Mr. and Mrs. America don't see any blood, don't see the flag-draped caskets, don't see the amputees and the burn victims and the severely wounded, then maybe they won't notice that this war is not only being fought with young men and women, it's being fought with 40 and 50 year olds. It's being fought with soldiers on their third, fourth tours of duty with high stress levels through the roof every single day. It's being fought with people who get called back again and again and again so that the nightmare never ends. It's being fought with an organized, high-tech force against guerrilla tactics, suicide bombers, and improvised explosives strapped to roller skates pulled across a road. It's being fought by one government against an idea, a common belief, a creed, a slogan shared by millions. How can you ever "win" a war that's fought against a belief? Do you define victory as getting people to stop thinking, or do you cleverly define it in terms that don't actually mean much at all, in terms that you can never really be sure you've achieved so that you have to keep fighting forever?
Drip, drip, drip. Just like my tears.
Yesterday I was walking home from the grocery store on the service road between the tracks and the retail stores, when I heard the rails sing and the crossing bells go off as another train approached from the west. I admit to being a bit of a rail buff; I always look to see what engines are pulling, the reporting marks on the cars, the type of cargo, and wonder where it's going and where it's been. Yesterday the flat cars bore the mark DODX. Department of Defense. On each flat car, about 35 in all, were strapped two brand new M1A2 tanks, painted desert tan, red kangaroo emblems on a small box near each hatch.
I cried. The tears welled in my eyes and all I could think was that people were going to die in those tanks, on those tanks, from those tanks. People were going to die for no very good reason at all in the middle of a civil war that we didn't begin 1400 years ago and that we can never end, all for the sake of ego and pride and making sure that the dictators in power belong to US and not THEM, however the THEM is designated to be this month.
Drip, drip, drip. One death at a time, two deaths a day maybe. The casualties come in drips in this Police Action, not in big media-friendly soundbites. There aren't any pictures in this war, notice? If Mr. and Mrs. America don't see any blood, don't see the flag-draped caskets, don't see the amputees and the burn victims and the severely wounded, then maybe they won't notice that this war is not only being fought with young men and women, it's being fought with 40 and 50 year olds. It's being fought with soldiers on their third, fourth tours of duty with high stress levels through the roof every single day. It's being fought with people who get called back again and again and again so that the nightmare never ends. It's being fought with an organized, high-tech force against guerrilla tactics, suicide bombers, and improvised explosives strapped to roller skates pulled across a road. It's being fought by one government against an idea, a common belief, a creed, a slogan shared by millions. How can you ever "win" a war that's fought against a belief? Do you define victory as getting people to stop thinking, or do you cleverly define it in terms that don't actually mean much at all, in terms that you can never really be sure you've achieved so that you have to keep fighting forever?
Drip, drip, drip. Just like my tears.