Today I got this as a "bulletin" from someone on my friends list, a girl I went to summer school with years ago when I was in high school. She's a nice person and I'm sure she meant no harm, but as you will see, sending this out as a bulletin to everyone on your list sometimes can create problems. My reply to her follows afterwards. The areas I take specific issue with I've emphasized.
It may take you two minutes to read this, but if you do not take the time to read this you are one of the people this post is talking about.
You stay up for 16 hours
He stays up for days on end.
_______________________
You take a warm shower to help you wake up.
He goes days or weeks without running water.
________________________
You complain of a "headache", and call in sick.
He gets shot at as others are hit, and keeps moving forward.
________________________
You put on your anti war/don't support the troops shirt, and go meet up with your friends.
He still fights for your right to wear that shirt.
________________________
You make sure you're cell phone is in your pocket.
He clutches the cross hanging on his chain next to his dog tags.
________________________
You talk trash about your "buddies" that aren't with you.
He knows he may not see some of his buddies again.
________________________
You walk down the beach, staring at all the pretty girls.
He patrols the streets, searching for insurgents and terrorists.
_______________________
You complain about how hot it is.
He wears his heavy gear, not daring to take off his helmet to wipe his brow.
________________________
You go out to lunch, and complain because the restaurant got your order wrong.
He doesn't get to eat today.
________________________
Your maid makes your bed and washes your clothes.
He wears the same things for weeks, but makes sure his weapons are clean.
________________________
You go to the mall and get your hair redone.
He doesn't have time to brush his teeth today.
________________________
You're angry because your class ran 5 minutes over.
He's told he will be held over an extra 2 months.
________________________
You call your girlfriend and set a date for tonight.
He waits for the mail to see if there is a letter from home.
________________________
You hug and kiss your girlfriend, like you do everyday.
He holds his letter close and smells his love's perfume.
________________________
You roll your eyes as a baby cries.
He gets a letter with pictures of his new child, and wonders if they'll ever meet
________________________
You criticize your government, and say that war never solves anything.
He sees the innocent tortured and killed by their own people and remembers why he is fighting.
________________________
You hear the jokes about the war, and make fun of men like him.
He hears the gunfire, bombs and screams of the wounded.
________________________
You see only what the media wants you to see.
He sees the broken bodies lying around him.
________________________
You are asked to go to the store by your parents. You don't.
He does exactly what he is told.
________________________
You stay at home and watch TV.
He takes whatever time he is given to call, write home, sleep, and eat.
________________________
You crawl into your soft bed, with down pillows, and get comfortable.
He tries to sleep but gets woken by mortars and helicopters all night long.
________________________
You sit there and judge him, saying the world is probably a worse place because of men like him.
If only there were more men like him
_________________________
If you support your troops, repost this.
If you don't support your troops well, then don't repost, it's not like you know the men and women that are dying to preserve your right
My reply:
[Name], I'd appreciate it if you read this all the way through.
To be perfectly honest with you, things like this are divisive and because of that I will NOT repost this. Hopefully the last statement in it won't still apply.
For the record, I AM anti-war. However, I take strong issue with a number of statements in your post.
"You hear the jokes about the war, and make fun of men like him."
I don't know ANY jokes about the war and I certainly don't find anything funny about war or about people dying, being hunted, kidnapped, executed, beheaded, set on fire, or for that matter, being the target of such actions. War is a serious gambit, something to be taken up as a last resort when all other options have been exhausted.
This next statement is clearly wrong as well:
"You see only what the media wants you to see."
Like Fox News telling me I'm a terrorist enabler because I'm anti-war, or Ann Coulter laughing about how best to execute liberals and that the only thing I'm good for is target practice or for that matter, Fox News, again, and recently, trying to imply that Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama poses a Muslim terrorist threat because he attended for two years a Muslim school that teaches extremist views which, I might add, was a complete load of crap and has been thoroughly debunked just yesterday by CNN. Bet you won't hear that on Fox News. What was that about hearing what you want?
There are media biases and they run on on both sides so you watch your media and I'll watch mine. I, however, will try to do the research both on and off the major media companies in order to derive the truth of the matter.
But of all the statements in your post, the one I disagree with more than anything else in this bulletin of yours is this:
"You sit there and judge him, saying the world is probably a worse place because of men like him."
I don't judge the troops but I can find nobody LESS deserving of MY respect than someone who will suggest or accuse ME of harboring such thoughts against American troops without first talking to me to see where I stand in the first place and then imply that "it's not like I know the men and women fighting to begin with."
Let me tell you a brief story before I make my last point.
I remember one of my best friends [name], who is in the Army, coming to visit me before the Iraq invasion while he was on leave. I hadn't seen him since high school when he moved out west.
We got to hang out for a week before he shipped back to Texas and where shortly after his arrival, I got an email that his company had just gotten orders to prepare to ship out. He was scared out of his mind and he didn't want to fight, but he knew that's what he had to do.
And then my emails stopped getting returned. I figured he had shipped, him AND his brother. For roughly 4 years now, I've been searching news links, military websites, deceased and injured lists looking for my friend, all to no avail. For roughly 4 years I knew not what had become of my friend and whether he was alive or dead or what.
And then, just a few weeks ago, I found him right here on MySpace. I found him two days after the last time he updated his MySpace page. I've requested to be his friend and sent him messages. I haven't heard back from him yet. Maybe he looked me up .. while serving and saw my website and wrote me off as just another anti-war person. Or maybe he's just busy with school and his girlfriend.
But either way, I still have not heard back from my friend who went to fight in Iraq. For the time being, all I can do is look at his picture on his MySpace page and read what he's written about this war. The only thing I can tell you about it is that you and him might have a VERY stark difference of opinion.
Would you suggest that he "doesn't know the men and women fighting to begin with?"
I judge the people who send the troops out to defend America against whatever threats are posed to us. And since I've raised the specter of "threats that face us," read this other statement in your post and try to think about it with what I'm about to say:
"He sees the innocent tortured and killed by their own people and remembers why he is fighting."
Any soldier who is in Iraq or Afghanistan right now is brave and a hero, no question about that. But that statement indicates that the reason "he" is fighting is because of torture and killing at the hands of...someone. Iraqis, Al-Qaeda, insurgents, whomever.
Yet that was NOT the reason we went to Iraq, was it? There was no mass genocide occurring there along the lines of what's occurring in Darfur that Iraqis and the global community were demanding that something be done about. Sure, Saddam was a bad guy and the world's better off without him. But...
The reason we were told we had to go to Iraq was because of a whole bunch of reasons including an imminent threat posed by WMD's which, at the mouth of Condoleeza Rice included the possibility of "the smoking gun being a mushroom cloud," links to Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden (who I might add is still roaming free...), some supposed link to 9/11, etc.
The reasons and justifications given for our invasion of Iraq are too numerous to get wrapped up in here or at this point in the game.
So tell me again "what" this soldier remembers "when" he remembers why he's fighting because I certainly don't remember Americans torturing and killing Americans here, or there, for that reason. All I know is that right now American soldiers are in Iraq in the middle of a civil war that really doesn't have much to do with American forces now as much as it does with Shiites and Suni Muslims battling along sectarian lines because of previous grievances against each other.
I don't mean to be harsh but please bear this in mind the next time you consider sending one of these out to your friends. It's a VERY quick way to lose them.
And although I'm not a religious person who will "pray" for your brother, I will wish him, and you, safe travels and good luck in the event he has to serve in a more dangerous region of the world. It takes a special person to commit to that line of work and it's something everyone should be proud of.
I've removed my Army friends name because of the fact that although it appears he is pretty against this war, he's got some things to say about both Democrats and Republicans and as such, based on the fact that I haven't talked to him yet, I don't want to definitively put any words into his mouth without first discussing it with him. I can only go by what he has written on his page.
I wanted to just share this because, well...I'm not sure. I was surprised to get this. Not necessarily from the person, but just in general. I guess that's just one of the risks of having one of these stupid MySpace accounts.
I also wanted to see if anyone else had gotten this but more importantly, what you might have said had you gotten this.