The worst thing?
Well, sitting here and finding out that after waiting an interminable amount of time, my brand new (to me, anyway) uncracked dashboard that I bought on Ebay is now in the Birmingham area on a FedEx truck, and I will miss being there to take delivery of it, and the guy'll probably leave it out in the open and it'll get stolen by somebody who likes to steal big long boxes. Or, it will have been crushed in shipment. Or they simply won't deliver it at all, and I'll have to go to the warehouse and get it. THE ANGUISH OF NOT KNOWING!!
Anyway, I left a while ago and had lunch with Miss Reba and some of her little friends from school. The college "gives" them a buffet lunch when the remote-learner students come to town--trust me, there's no such thing as a free lunch. And yes, I did pay for mine, even though I could have sneaked one. Pretty good, though, for college cafeteria food. Processed-to-a-fare-thee-well popcorn shrimp, baked chicken, salad, green beans, steamed vegetables, rice, rolls, tea, peach cobbler--I was good and had the salad and vegetables. And was bad and had a wad of shrimps.
Lunch was interesting--this time we sat with some of her classmates (last time we ate by ourselves) and it was an interesting chat. Moreso when one of the guys mentioned he had recently returned from active duty in Iraq. 15 months. He also was part of Desert Storm. He's a nurse in civilian life and I assume he was there as well. It's hard to convince some people about the true nature of what goes on in Iraq. As he said, the people feel trapped and confused by the terrorists as well as by the efforts to get rid of the terrorists. "Someone comes in with a gun and tells you to move, you move." But, as he noted, there's only one side of this conflict who would like to get on with rebuilding. The other side is intent on either killing all the infidels, or being killed in the process. Withdrawal is a fool's game--he was quite serious when he said quietly, "If we don't kill them there, they WILL come here." And surprisingly enough [/sarcasm], he said we weren't being told the whole story by the media--In his eyes, there really is no difference between Al Jazeera and any of the Western news organizations. "Why do they go out and show the enemy shooting at us?" The "antiwar" people of all stripes, no matter how much they say they "support the troops," were seen by this man and his fellow soldiers on the ground as an impediment, and as bolstering the morale of the enemy. Well, there's antiwar, and then there's just being on the other side. He mentioned the difficulty of life in a war zone, but that it gives you a whole new perspective on the inconsequence of complaining about how hard your job is back home, where things aren't apt to explode when you walk by.
We got up and they got ready to go back to class, and one of the women at the table gave him the standard "appreciate your service" peptalk--it was sincere, I know, but you could tell from his discomfort at getting a compliment that his sense of his contribution was not nearly so great as that of the men he'd helped who'd lost their lives or limbs. I think there's something to what soldiers say who have survived war and return home being hailed as heroes--the truly heroic will never return.
Well, Reba just buzzed me on the phone--gotta go back home now. All of you have a good weekend, and I'll see you Monday.
Anyway, I left a while ago and had lunch with Miss Reba and some of her little friends from school. The college "gives" them a buffet lunch when the remote-learner students come to town--trust me, there's no such thing as a free lunch. And yes, I did pay for mine, even though I could have sneaked one. Pretty good, though, for college cafeteria food. Processed-to-a-fare-thee-well popcorn shrimp, baked chicken, salad, green beans, steamed vegetables, rice, rolls, tea, peach cobbler--I was good and had the salad and vegetables. And was bad and had a wad of shrimps.
Lunch was interesting--this time we sat with some of her classmates (last time we ate by ourselves) and it was an interesting chat. Moreso when one of the guys mentioned he had recently returned from active duty in Iraq. 15 months. He also was part of Desert Storm. He's a nurse in civilian life and I assume he was there as well. It's hard to convince some people about the true nature of what goes on in Iraq. As he said, the people feel trapped and confused by the terrorists as well as by the efforts to get rid of the terrorists. "Someone comes in with a gun and tells you to move, you move." But, as he noted, there's only one side of this conflict who would like to get on with rebuilding. The other side is intent on either killing all the infidels, or being killed in the process. Withdrawal is a fool's game--he was quite serious when he said quietly, "If we don't kill them there, they WILL come here." And surprisingly enough [/sarcasm], he said we weren't being told the whole story by the media--In his eyes, there really is no difference between Al Jazeera and any of the Western news organizations. "Why do they go out and show the enemy shooting at us?" The "antiwar" people of all stripes, no matter how much they say they "support the troops," were seen by this man and his fellow soldiers on the ground as an impediment, and as bolstering the morale of the enemy. Well, there's antiwar, and then there's just being on the other side. He mentioned the difficulty of life in a war zone, but that it gives you a whole new perspective on the inconsequence of complaining about how hard your job is back home, where things aren't apt to explode when you walk by.
We got up and they got ready to go back to class, and one of the women at the table gave him the standard "appreciate your service" peptalk--it was sincere, I know, but you could tell from his discomfort at getting a compliment that his sense of his contribution was not nearly so great as that of the men he'd helped who'd lost their lives or limbs. I think there's something to what soldiers say who have survived war and return home being hailed as heroes--the truly heroic will never return.
Well, Reba just buzzed me on the phone--gotta go back home now. All of you have a good weekend, and I'll see you Monday.
posted by Terry at 8/27/2005 02:47:00 PM
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