It seems sacrifice is only for the military--and the soldiers' families. Over at my other site, one of our longtime members is facing her husband's THIRD deployment. Her description of family life on the base brought tears to my eyes.
One day I found myself standing in an on-post post office cuddled up in my arms like a lover was a priority mail box covered in priority mail tape. I looked down and up the line and I saw myself repeated. Over a half dozen other women of various shapes and sizes and colours all standing in line cuddling thier boxes as if it were the man they were sending it too. Box sizes were different, we were different and yet we were the same. The woman beside me had completely wrapped her box in tape. She told me the last package hadn't faired well. I almost burst into tears at that moment. I could see it in all thier eyes. All these strangers and yet here we were all feeling just the same thing in our hearts. All of us trying to transfer the last bit of love we could into those boxes before we handed the to the postal clerks to be weighed and charges outrageous amounts of shipping. It was a longing we shared. This was how we felt close to the men we loved. This was our intamacy, our contact. We were touching the box and at some point not to be predicted he would touch the box. It was a solemn unity that held more sadness and yet more strength than I think I had ever felt in my life.
I don't know how this gal feels about the war, and I'm not going to bring it up with her; at my site, we are about supporting each other as we try to make our houses homes, regardless of political affiliation. She accepts that this is the life she married into with her eyes open. I don't want anyone to read anything into what she's written; take it at face value, and I beg you not to comment on that thread if you can't be supportive and somewhat apolitical.
But what made me decide to write over here was a follow-up comment from another military wife, who told me about Fisher House, an organization that helps military families in a number of ways. It pays for families to stay close by when a wounded solider is getting treatment. It pays for supplies for wounded soliders. It's building a rehab center for wounded soldiers. And it's paying for--and this is the bit that really gets me--food and rent for military families, because for all of the trillions of dollars we've spent on this war, we don't pay our people enough to take care of their families. None of this is news to Kossacks, but still.
Haven't they sacrificed enough? If we're going to have a war--and Iraq wasn't a war we should have taken on--but if we're going to have a war, shouldn't everyone in the country be involved, either serving or sacrificing SOMETHING? Instead, it's all on the soldiers and their families. The administration insists on tax cuts during wartime and tells us that the best thing we can do is go shopping--while the soldiers are sent off without training and armor, are housed in mold-infested facilities when they're wounded, and sent back to Iraq even when they're too injured to wear body armor.
Enough.