i'm torn...
the last two weeks i have been exposed to different stories, views, and hence, emotions and thoughts on the whole concept of war...
talking with two high school classmates of mine, one who was stationed in iraq, the other, afghanistan, they represent very different results of fighting for one side and destroying the other... one firmly stands behind his country still, happy to fight "them over there, as long as it isn't over here" whereas the other has lost the cause, and cannot go back to organized religion, because it is this which causes one human to kill another...
watching "flags of our fathers" which portrays the repercussions of fighting in battles and watching someone who could be your brother, given a different set of circumstances, die in front of your own eyes, by your own hand... and then returning to a land where those battles are completely foreign but you are displayed as a hero...
walking through the war memorials in washington dc gave me some time to contemplate the reasons why those people are represented, whether by name or battle or nation... they fought to protect, to survive, to prove, to represent, to win, to lead, to follow, who knows? WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Cold War, War on Terrorism... it humbles me, thinking of those who fought so the U.S. is where it is today, but it worries me where we are going...
maybe its my ignorance, innocent, or pure optimism, but i just don't see why we can't see that we have our differences but we can live alongside those differences because more or less, we are all the same... we all bleed, no matter what ground we bleed on...
the thing that truly saddens me, though, is deep down, i know we will continue to add monuments... probably forever...
