A week ago I told of an encounter with a woman in my 55+ community who opined how she'd "rather fight them over there, than here and who, notwithstanding her notion on the essentiality of more troops, would not encourage her military-age grandson to enlist for a combat tour. Sarcastically she felt it necessary to remind me, "You do know, don't you, that we have a voluntary military? One, the greatest peril the woman ever faced in her nearly 70 years was that a bundt cake might not turn out as she hoped. So, she is obviously not a component of the we who she suggests will be fighting them anywhere. Two, on her mindlessly ignorant and thoroughly callous and obscenely ugly sentiments alone, I not only concluded to forgo attending the community's Thanksgiving dinner, but decided to have no further voluntary contact with her, or anyone of her unseemly ilk.
Lessons have been offered. The names of the teachers are etched on a black granite V in Washington. Others are still trying to teach us. Their haggard faces and empty stares can be seen in every urban city. We do not have to trek down this terrible road. We just do not have to.
But we're going to.
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
We would not listen; we're not listening still --
Perhaps we never will...
" Ed Tubbs
Palm Springs
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