Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Tryin' to Get Home
Yesterday I was in my car listening to one of my ubiquitous oldies tapes when Freda Payne's 1971 hit "Bring the Boys Home" came on. The summer of 1971 was relatively late in the Vietnam Era--the antiwar glory days of the 1960s, when bomber jet planes riding shotgun in the sky turned into butterflies above our nation, were fading into cultural lore, replaced by a kind of grim numbness as the war ground on. Millions were still against it, but many of the millions had lost the energy to fight it any longer. So Payne's hit was a little bit out of time even in its time. But as I heard it yesterday, I thought maybe it's found its time again:
Fathers are pleading
Brothers are all alone
Mothers are praying
Send our sons back home
You marched them away
On ships and planes
To a senseless war
Facing death in vain
Bring the boys home
Bring 'em back alive....
Not great poetry, kind of sentimental, but still it kills you at the middle eight:
Can't you see them marching 'cross the sky
All the soldiers that have died
Tryin' to get home
Can't you see them tryin' to get home
I understand that now that we're there, we can't just pack up and leave. As I have written several times before, we have a moral responsibility to do whatever we can to ameliorate the suffering of the Iraqi people, a goodly percentage of which we have caused and continue to cause. But let's remember that every time we hear about another GI or two dying in a rocket attack or getting blown up by a land mine, that it's somebody's son, daughter, brother, sister, mother, father, friend. They are not--our leaders' actions to the contrary--disposable or the hired help. They are not--our leaders' actions to the contrary--a necessary cost of Halliburton's business.
And let's remember also, that when George W. Bush goes to Arlington today and yammers about sacrifice and how important our veterans are, how his administration put them in harm's way on dubious pretenses and for dubious goals; how he's shortchanging them in his budget; how he tried to cut their hazardous duty pay; and how in many other ways--skipping their funerals, neglecting to send condolences to their families--he makes a lie out of every word he is going to say.
Yesterday I was in my car listening to one of my ubiquitous oldies tapes when Freda Payne's 1971 hit "Bring the Boys Home" came on. The summer of 1971 was relatively late in the Vietnam Era--the antiwar glory days of the 1960s, when bomber jet planes riding shotgun in the sky turned into butterflies above our nation, were fading into cultural lore, replaced by a kind of grim numbness as the war ground on. Millions were still against it, but many of the millions had lost the energy to fight it any longer. So Payne's hit was a little bit out of time even in its time. But as I heard it yesterday, I thought maybe it's found its time again:
Fathers are pleading
Brothers are all alone
Mothers are praying
Send our sons back home
You marched them away
On ships and planes
To a senseless war
Facing death in vain
Bring the boys home
Bring 'em back alive....
Not great poetry, kind of sentimental, but still it kills you at the middle eight:
Can't you see them marching 'cross the sky
All the soldiers that have died
Tryin' to get home
Can't you see them tryin' to get home
I understand that now that we're there, we can't just pack up and leave. As I have written several times before, we have a moral responsibility to do whatever we can to ameliorate the suffering of the Iraqi people, a goodly percentage of which we have caused and continue to cause. But let's remember that every time we hear about another GI or two dying in a rocket attack or getting blown up by a land mine, that it's somebody's son, daughter, brother, sister, mother, father, friend. They are not--our leaders' actions to the contrary--disposable or the hired help. They are not--our leaders' actions to the contrary--a necessary cost of Halliburton's business.
And let's remember also, that when George W. Bush goes to Arlington today and yammers about sacrifice and how important our veterans are, how his administration put them in harm's way on dubious pretenses and for dubious goals; how he's shortchanging them in his budget; how he tried to cut their hazardous duty pay; and how in many other ways--skipping their funerals, neglecting to send condolences to their families--he makes a lie out of every word he is going to say.
