10/28/05
As a consumate windbag, I get involved in discussions on a variety of message boards. This is
one example:
"I am accused by other's on this thread of somehow following the Karl Rove line,
while the best you all can do is cite MoveOn.org.
We can also cite particular people who agree with us. The are many parents of people in Iraq
who disagree with Sheehan and believe her statements endanger their children.
However, overall, parents with children in Iraq support the War more than the general population.
Moreover, the enlistment rate of those who have served is Iraq is exceeding high. What do they know that you and I do not?
If such is true, parents with children in Iraq support the war more than the general population
because they have skin in the game, as do we.
We are not yet qualified to be members of Cindy's Gold Star Families, nor do we ever want
to qualify. It takes the loss of a family member to qualify.
Have you seen "overall" a survey of attitudes of families who've lost loved ones about that
loss?
I think that when a parent loses a child to war or a spouse loses a mate, or someone loses a
sibling the immediate and often most enduring reaction in addition to the shocked grieving is an anger that will express itself
either at the reason for the loss or any suggestion that the loss was not justified.
Long before Mrs. Sheehan we've seen nationally instances of grieving mothers and fathers driven
to confront BushCO at their conventions, speaking engagements and directly to the White House.
The typifying example is the mom in Michael Moore's film, Fahrenheit 9/11, who
started out so proud of her family's military heritage but ended in horrible agony outside the White House.
The poorest method for how NOT to deal with a relative's grief -with one exception in this year's
State of the Union Address - has been repeatedly modeled by the President, his administration and political advisors. This
both in terms of relatives angry at Bush as well as relatives in support.
However, to be fair, every relative whose soldier pays the ultimate price for our country deserves
exactly the same kind of acknowledgment and consolation - something impossible to achieve and something Bushco knows
it should have been doing in some form from the start.
We've also seen what happens when that anger is aimed at anything that questions the value of
a soldier's death in war.
Outspoken grieving realtives seem to ache to tell SOMEBODY to shut the f*** up, to give SOMEBODY
their comeuppance and to make SOMEBODY account for the loss.
In a context of compassion these not only are best left alone and given individual respect,
regard and space for their circumstance of agony. They are too locked into an outrage that needs focus in some specific direction.
But the context of these deaths and losses is not normal and when those bereaved speak out and
indict a president, his supporters are wont to scream "foul" regardless of the fact that grieving relatives have no political
mandate to keep quiet.
Nor should they.
Angry relatives have the right of free expression which corresponds with our own. From our point
of view we work to avoid the same kind of agony for any other soldier's families, avoid needless loss of life, that - as we
see it - does not happen for a just and noble reason.
Which puts us immediately at risk of being perceived as diminishing the value of a soldier's
life. It is an issue of semantics and context, academic concepts that are useful but pale in comparison with the emotion and
passion of family love, unity and sense of patriotic community with all citizens of the nation.
Yet, getting a verbal handle on the actuality of the war, of death and destruction and of the
reasons for it are at the heart of the matter. At this time the flaming passion of those opposing is on the rise and BushCo
seems to have only gasoline to pour on it.
© Arthur Ruger 2005