When I was just sixteen my childhood sweetheart came home from Germany where he had been a combat infantry machine gunner. When I reached the age of seventeen,and we were engaged, I was not mature enough to realize how scarred he was by the war. He had been on in on the liberation of a prison camp and described lamp shades made of human skin and the emaciated survivors. He told me how hard hearted he had to become in order to function as a soldier in a war.

I never thought that such callous disregard of human life would ever be a part of American life. Viet Nam and now Iraq have been a slaughter of innocents. Both our young men and innocent men, women and children in Iraq have lost their lives or been horribly wounded.

I hate the term, collateral damage. It dehumanizes the victims. People who are living, breathing human beings with hopes and dreams common to us all.

Human and animal life are sacred to me. I guess I am just naive.

Comments:

Life is cruel. A death can be more so. You've kept a good attitude regarding most things.

comment by dragonflyby on July 24, 2008 8:26 AM ()

Dear dragon, I can't think of anything more devastating than losing a loved one to suicide. My heart goes out to you.

reply by tealstar on July 24, 2008 9:06 PM ()

comment by oldfatguy on July 23, 2008 4:08 PM ()

I am proud of you for seeing war for what it really is. War is an old man's game that young men play and die.

reply by elderjane on July 24, 2008 4:21 AM ()

You are realistic not naive. When I got back, my parents and my wife almost didn't recognize me I was so changed. To this day violence is an option for me. I see the effects of war on the home folks too. Since I have been out of the States 16 years, I've seen the USA become less kind and a whole lot of viciousness has set in. She has attack radio and cartoons instead of movies.
The Americans went nuts during and after Vietnam, but the Iraq era is even worse. We have gone from hating blacks to hating everybody on the no-fly list.

comment by bumpedoff on July 23, 2008 1:18 PM ()

I know two political refugees who fled to America for freedom. The conditions they found there prompted one to leave for Venezuela and the other to risk a long detention camp stay to enter Ireland.

reply by bumpedoff on July 24, 2008 5:41 AM ()

I love my country but cruelty and violence are celebrated in movies and cartoons, the media is slanted and television stoops very low these days. We have had a long war that has done nothing but kill Americans and a lot of innocent Iraquis. It was based on fraud. I keep wondering how we have allowed this to happen.

reply by elderjane on July 24, 2008 4:38 AM ()

No you are not naive.Just a very caring person.
Nice post there.

comment by fredo on July 23, 2008 12:45 PM ()

You are a kind and gentle person too. Wish there were a lot more of us.

reply by elderjane on July 24, 2008 4:49 AM ()

Caveat - unless it's their own life of course...

I don't think you are naive at all. I concur. It baffles me that people are so nonchalant about all life in general... Baffles me indeed!

comment by kristilyn3 on July 23, 2008 12:44 PM ()

To see life just snuffed out for no reason is unthinkable to me. There are so many people that feel like we do. Why don't we have more of a voice in the way our world is run?

reply by elderjane on July 24, 2008 4:47 AM ()