2008 Woodie Awards
What's Bush's excuse this time?
By: Linda Merrick
Issue date: 1/16/07 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 1
In previous years, the military was a place for what I viewed as "grownups." My friend's fathers or uncles were in the military. It was a place for my grandfathers. Military life, and fighting wars, was the responsibility of those much older and very removed from my life.
Wars themselves were a thing of the past. Heroism in WWII and protest in Vietnam were just footnotes in history. Growing up, Vietnam seemed more like era of good music rather than an actual war where people died. War never seemed like something that would affect me.
Now, people serving in the military are my peers. They are my friends. They are people I've known my entire life. They are my classmates. I've already been to one funeral for a fallen soldier- I don't want to do it again. These people are real to me and in return this war is real to me.
To President Bush, it doesn't seem like these soldiers are actual people. Instead they are only numbers. The people fighting this war are in a lower age bracket and a lower financial bracket than the president. He has no fond memories of the fallen soldiers as children or on their wedding days. Their deaths simply do not affect him very personally. He may claim they do, but look at the smirk on his face when he says it.
Presidents Bush's plan to send even more troops to Iraq seems ill-advised at best. 21,500 more troops is an insanely large number. Sending these people into a war that seems to be getting more dangerous by the day is a scary thought. That means more lives will be lost, for sure.
I can say with certainty that I am against the way the war has progressed. We went to find weapons that weren't there and then decided to stay until we captured Saddam. We captured him, tried him and hung him. Now what? We send tens of thousands more troops? What's the excuse this time?
Wars themselves were a thing of the past. Heroism in WWII and protest in Vietnam were just footnotes in history. Growing up, Vietnam seemed more like era of good music rather than an actual war where people died. War never seemed like something that would affect me.
Now, people serving in the military are my peers. They are my friends. They are people I've known my entire life. They are my classmates. I've already been to one funeral for a fallen soldier- I don't want to do it again. These people are real to me and in return this war is real to me.
To President Bush, it doesn't seem like these soldiers are actual people. Instead they are only numbers. The people fighting this war are in a lower age bracket and a lower financial bracket than the president. He has no fond memories of the fallen soldiers as children or on their wedding days. Their deaths simply do not affect him very personally. He may claim they do, but look at the smirk on his face when he says it.
Presidents Bush's plan to send even more troops to Iraq seems ill-advised at best. 21,500 more troops is an insanely large number. Sending these people into a war that seems to be getting more dangerous by the day is a scary thought. That means more lives will be lost, for sure.
I can say with certainty that I am against the way the war has progressed. We went to find weapons that weren't there and then decided to stay until we captured Saddam. We captured him, tried him and hung him. Now what? We send tens of thousands more troops? What's the excuse this time?
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