I remember picking up this issue of Life magazine from the coffee table of my girlfriend's parents house on a summer day in 1969. I had just enlisted in the Army a few days before. Not a good thing to see photos of 242 Americans who had been killed in a single week in Vietnam, particularly at that stage of my life. Back then we were always reminded of the numbers, just numbers, of the Vietnam dead. That issue of Life magazine gave those numbers faces. Now we hear "roadside bomb" and "5 Americans killed", but it seems we learn more about the individual soldiers. Maybe that's because there aren't as many killed in Iraq as there were in Vietnam, but it's all basically the same once again. When will we learn? Being sheriff of the world has a terrible price.
Friday, June 29, 2007
How Many More?
I remember picking up this issue of Life magazine from the coffee table of my girlfriend's parents house on a summer day in 1969. I had just enlisted in the Army a few days before. Not a good thing to see photos of 242 Americans who had been killed in a single week in Vietnam, particularly at that stage of my life. Back then we were always reminded of the numbers, just numbers, of the Vietnam dead. That issue of Life magazine gave those numbers faces. Now we hear "roadside bomb" and "5 Americans killed", but it seems we learn more about the individual soldiers. Maybe that's because there aren't as many killed in Iraq as there were in Vietnam, but it's all basically the same once again. When will we learn? Being sheriff of the world has a terrible price.
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2 comments:
It does have a terrible price. I see that bumper sticker - "Freedom is not Free" - and I agree but I also think there's no reason to artificially inflate the price of freedom. Lets pay what we have to and no more. The blood of fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers, husbands and wives should not be spent frivilously.
Thanks for this post.
EXACTLY. Well said.
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