May 26, 2008 23:42
I went to Arlington National Cemetery today. I don't think I'd been there since the 6th or 7th grade. My mom took me. She wanted me to see all the new graves of the soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. The newest graves didn’t even have headstones yet, and the ground was still soft that my foot sunk down when I walked on it. It was…well it just was. I don’t know what the proper word to use to describe it is. I mean it was moving, but mostly I just felt angry and sad. We probably spent about an hour walking up and down the rows of graves. Most of the soldiers there were between the ages of 18 and 20 when they died. Most were younger than I am now. The youngest I saw was born in ’88. Another majority of them were in their early thirties. Every single grave was marked with some personal item. Flowers, small stones, letters, pictures, toys, a half empty bottle of whiskey.
I felt like an intruder, an outsider. There were people just camped out there in front of graves with chairs and umbrellas, food and drink, they were staying there for the whole day to be with their loved ones. There were grandparents and parents, children, friends and other soldiers. There were mothers and wives lying on the ground, just staring at the headstones of their children and husbands, crying.
And I can say I understand, but I really don’t. I feel lucky and privileged because I don’t know anyone who has been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan and I probably never will. The military culture is not my culture, my family and I don’t run in those circles (if the draft ever came back and it included women, my brother and I would probably go to Canada or Europe, I bet my parents would come too), it’s not a part of my life. I think I can count on one hand the people I know who are currently in the military, or joining as soon as they graduate from college next year. And maybe that’s the problem. That for so many people, the war is so far removed from their everyday life, from their conscience or whatever that they don’t think about it, it doesn’t have an impact on their life at all. Those stupid fucking people with a ribbon sticker on their car, what do they know or care about the war and the loss of a human life?
My mom said she wished Bush would come and see all the graves, and I said no, I want Hillary Clinton to come and look at every single headstone and read every single name, and know that those soldiers died in vain and she is in some way responsible. Her vote helped to send them over there, and that is why I cannot ever vote for her as president (I wouldn’t vote her regardless). If she thought she would appear weak or was too afraid to vote against the war, then that isn’t someone who should be leading this country.