Resolve: not to be intimidated by those with whom we disagree
After attending the "close the SOA actions."I finally got the courage to put my bumper stickers "support the troops bring them home now!"
and "non-violence -- anti-terrorism that work" back onto my car.
The night I arrived in Alabama in 2004 I had removed the former, fearing the reputation of the redstate area I was living in.
No fingers, no vandalism for nigh on two months.
May you be encouraged to enhearten others out there and advertise the truth at risk to your dear petrol-guzzling transportation, bearing in mind that even the military is nearly facing a majority against continuing this war and against the premise that the war was necessary to begin with.
-hd
War opponent driven to make her views clear
By STEPHANIE HORTON
GUEST COLUMNIST
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
01/03/06
I taped a banner across the rear window of my sedan. It says: "Bush's War: Another Vietnam."
"You're asking for trouble!" my husband warned.
But I drive around Alpharetta with my banner anyway. My conscience won't let me do otherwise.
It all started when a soldier came into our lives. Our daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend is a future Army Ranger. He's a born soldier ? born on Veterans Day. He's an Eagle Scout, an A student, a leader in his church. So earnest about the Army. So willing to dedicate his life to his country.
This young man once told our daughter, "As much as I love you, I love your freedom even more."
He's respectful to his elders, so he holds his tongue in regard to my banner. I know it's hard for him.
I can see this young man night-paratrooping into Afghanistan to flush Osama bin Laden from his lair. I can see him willingly risk his young life to capture the horrific mastermind of Sept. 11, if those were his orders. Sometimes, swift military justice is the right thing to do, and this exceptional young man was born to do the right thing.
But for the life of me, I think our government will instead march him into Iraq, the land of 1,000 newly created bin Ladens, suicide bombers sprouting like deadly mushrooms in the darkness of a hated, ill-conceived occupation.
If this country is lucky, he'll make it back. Some young men survived Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara, and some will survive George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. Then as now, old men talk and young men die.
More than 50,000 Americans dead in southeast Asia, in a war that dragged on for decades.
Twenty-two hundred Americans dead in Iraq. We still don't have bin Laden.
I put the sign in my car window in hopes of discovering how my fellow north Fulton residents feel about this issue. Within the first half-hour of flying the "Bush's War: Another Vietnam" banner, a well-coiffed woman in a white Volvo leaving North Point Mall gave me the most disgusted look imaginable. Also at the mall, someone put a note under my wiper. "People like you get our service men and women kill. (sic) ? A Vet" the note read.
With due respect to the veteran, I think it is war that gets our servicemen and women killed.
My favorite response was from a young Jeep driver, who gave me an emphatic thumbs-down and then playfully refused to let me merge into his lane. It felt good that we could respectfully disagree.
A young man with a military haircut saluted me on Ga. 400. An African-American couple in a Range Rover, dressed for church on a Sunday morning, honked and waved on Medlock Bridge Road. Young people ? the kind with junker cars glued together by bumper stickers ? they love my sign.
Maybe we'll see more homemade signs as this war drags on. Maybe it will dawn on us that we're sacrificing our best and brightest to yet another quagmire.
Make a sign of your own! I'd like to know your point of view, beyond "W: The President."
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0106/03warcolumn.html
and "non-violence -- anti-terrorism that work" back onto my car.
The night I arrived in Alabama in 2004 I had removed the former, fearing the reputation of the redstate area I was living in.
No fingers, no vandalism for nigh on two months.
May you be encouraged to enhearten others out there and advertise the truth at risk to your dear petrol-guzzling transportation, bearing in mind that even the military is nearly facing a majority against continuing this war and against the premise that the war was necessary to begin with.
-hd
War opponent driven to make her views clear
By STEPHANIE HORTON
GUEST COLUMNIST
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
01/03/06
I taped a banner across the rear window of my sedan. It says: "Bush's War: Another Vietnam."
"You're asking for trouble!" my husband warned.
But I drive around Alpharetta with my banner anyway. My conscience won't let me do otherwise.
It all started when a soldier came into our lives. Our daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend is a future Army Ranger. He's a born soldier ? born on Veterans Day. He's an Eagle Scout, an A student, a leader in his church. So earnest about the Army. So willing to dedicate his life to his country.
This young man once told our daughter, "As much as I love you, I love your freedom even more."
He's respectful to his elders, so he holds his tongue in regard to my banner. I know it's hard for him.
I can see this young man night-paratrooping into Afghanistan to flush Osama bin Laden from his lair. I can see him willingly risk his young life to capture the horrific mastermind of Sept. 11, if those were his orders. Sometimes, swift military justice is the right thing to do, and this exceptional young man was born to do the right thing.
But for the life of me, I think our government will instead march him into Iraq, the land of 1,000 newly created bin Ladens, suicide bombers sprouting like deadly mushrooms in the darkness of a hated, ill-conceived occupation.
If this country is lucky, he'll make it back. Some young men survived Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara, and some will survive George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. Then as now, old men talk and young men die.
More than 50,000 Americans dead in southeast Asia, in a war that dragged on for decades.
Twenty-two hundred Americans dead in Iraq. We still don't have bin Laden.
I put the sign in my car window in hopes of discovering how my fellow north Fulton residents feel about this issue. Within the first half-hour of flying the "Bush's War: Another Vietnam" banner, a well-coiffed woman in a white Volvo leaving North Point Mall gave me the most disgusted look imaginable. Also at the mall, someone put a note under my wiper. "People like you get our service men and women kill. (sic) ? A Vet" the note read.
With due respect to the veteran, I think it is war that gets our servicemen and women killed.
My favorite response was from a young Jeep driver, who gave me an emphatic thumbs-down and then playfully refused to let me merge into his lane. It felt good that we could respectfully disagree.
A young man with a military haircut saluted me on Ga. 400. An African-American couple in a Range Rover, dressed for church on a Sunday morning, honked and waved on Medlock Bridge Road. Young people ? the kind with junker cars glued together by bumper stickers ? they love my sign.
Maybe we'll see more homemade signs as this war drags on. Maybe it will dawn on us that we're sacrificing our best and brightest to yet another quagmire.
Make a sign of your own! I'd like to know your point of view, beyond "W: The President."
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0106/03warcolumn.html
Comments
I sincerely hope we catch and stop terrorism abroad before it happens here again as long as we are already over there fighting. God bless our troops and may they come home alive.
Thanks for reading my comments and blogs. Please come to our Democratic meeting 7 pm Thursday evening to discuss this and other issues at the Oconee County BOC chambers at the courthouse.
I hope the Iraqis get the means to take care of spina bifida or other birth defects in their own country soon.