Memorial Day

I just saw President Bush give a short speech at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington, VA. Every day I think of how unbelievably unjust it is that American soldiers are dying in this war of choice, not necessity, whose alleged purpose has changed with the shifting winds of politics and factual reality. It is incredibly unfair and wrong that only a select few people have to go fight these chosen wars in the name of the "United States," while the rest of us sip our lattes, surf the Internet, have sex, go to work and make money, and eat hamburgers and hot dogs on Memorial Day. We have not been asked to make any sacrifice, any donation, nothing. Instead, they gave us a tax cut.

But sometimes, SOMETIMES, the reality of the war and the sacrifice of those who are fighting it in our name cut through all the bullshit. Yesterday, I saw a black and white picture of an American soldier in New York Times Magazine who was missing an eye. He was sitting in a chair, staring blankly forward. At first glance, his face looked normal. His right eye was a bright, clear orb. Then my gaze shifted to the other side of his face, and his left eye was just gone. Nothing in there but an empty, concave socket patched over with skin. It looked like an indented pocket, the kind you would see on a pool table. The starkness of that picture truly shocked me. As if losing an eye were not enough, he had lost part of his frontal lobe too. I looked at his head and it looked somewhat misshapen on the left side, but no scar was visible. I wondered what it meant to have part of your frontal lobe taken away. Doesn't that part of the brain control personality and emotion? I tried to imagine the pain and agony that the picture and words on the page conveyed. It was simply impossible. All this and more caused by an IED.

And what was I doing when I was reading this? Eating an egg and cheese bagel - toasted please - and drinking a nice hot cup of joe in my favorite bagel place in Williamsburg on a glorious sunny day. I'm reading the papers papers and then boom, this picture is in my face waking me up again to the reality that people are losing eyes, limbs, pieces of skull, faces, and lives in this war. Americans and Iraqis are being slaughtered in a civil war that started almost as soon as we declared "Mission Accomplished." And for what? The other day I heard some self-gratifying pundit say on t.v. that, "you know, Iraq was more 'stable' under Saddam Hussein." No shit.

The rest of us huddled masses who have no family members in this war watch this unfolding mess like it's a movie that we can turn off when we want to. Like it's not costing us anything. This is because, on a daily basis, we are shielded from the reality of this war, from its true cost. You never see pictures of dead Americans, much less dead Iraqis. No wonder, when there is a public outcry when they even bother to show flag-covered coffins coming home in airplanes. It's as if the nobility and patriotism symbolized by those pictures and embodied by the people who now lie dead in those coffins needs to be hidden from us. Like the crazy uncle that we keep in the attic. But anyone with half a brain in their head realizes that the real purpose for this media control is to prevent a bigger backlash against the war. Americans value American lives, and when Americans are shown dead or dying, the calls for withdrawal come fast and quick. It's no accident that we haven't seen the kind of violent protests against this war that we saw against the Vietnam War.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the mainstream media in this country is being managed. Controlled. I can't think of a single mainstream journalist who actually questioned this war going in, who said, um... why are we doing this again? Is this really what we should be doing when we still need to deal with Afghanistan? How many troops are you planning to use? Do we have enough? The media just accepted things at face value - Paula Zahn in the morning on CNN with that melodramatic war drumbeat in the background. "Is today the day that a showdown with Saddam Hussein takes place? Iraq's deadline to comply with the UN Resolutions is fast approaching - what will the U.S. do?" Fucking joke. The media just accepted Bushie's "proof" of Iraq's nuclear plans at face value. Nobody asked any questions. Or the right questions. And we ate it up. Like a 3 year-old chugging down Cream of Wheat. "Maybe the government knows something we don't. They have all the intelligence, right?" Uh, yeah - they have it. They CREATED it.

In the meantime, people continue to die in a cause that looks more like a colossal, ridiculously-expensive mistake every day. And what happens when these poor soldiers come home? After the parades and hugs are over? Post-traumatic stress disorder. Unemployment. Depression. Broken families. Homelessness. Rehabilitation. How is this war different from Vietnam again?

Enough of all this serious talk. It's Memorial Day. I need to finish my coffee and get out into the sun a bit. Maybe later I'll play a little Playstation. There's this new game called "Guitar Hero" that I absolutely love. Oh yeah, I also have to finish Medal of Honor. I can't seem to get past the guard tower in the second-to-last stage.