It’s all intellectual stimulation, imperial guilt, and dissociated sympathy until it’s your family they send to war: my cousin ships out to Iraq today.
FYI, I will hold George Motherfucking Bush, his motherfucking cabinet, the entire motherfucking Congress (especially the imperialists), and every motherfucking war apologist personally responsible if a hair on his head or a neuron in his brain comes back damaged.
(Technically, he’s not my first cousin to go. Another—by marriage—has been there more than 6 months, but I hardly know him: he knocked my cousin up, married her, then joined the Army and shipped out the day the baby was born. Had he been wounded or killed—very likely, given that he was scouting for roadside bombs—it would have been devastating to her and her daughter; I would have held GWB, the cabinet, the Congress, and the apologists responsible for her grief. Fortunately, he’s coming home in two weeks. Labor Day weekend, the relief on her face and in her voice was evident because of it.)
Indeed.
by GKB—Sep 12, 08:10 AM
I had to make a myspace page.
by greg—Sep 12, 08:23 AM
Myspace page?
Is that your cousin’s own offspring in his arms, or a borrowed one?
by GKB—Sep 12, 08:33 AM
Borrowed. He’s her uncle.
But yeah, he’s on myspace and I figure that’s where he’ll go first when he can go online.
by greg—Sep 12, 08:36 AM
Best wishes.
by JH—Sep 12, 11:33 AM
What they said. Prayers, etc. will be said and thought.
by Laura—Sep 12, 07:19 PM
Dude, that sucks.
by Scott—Sep 13, 08:10 AM
I’m a little surprised he hasn’t been deployed already. He’s been active duty for several years and stationed at Camp Pendleton, which is like a prescription to be sent to war. But you’re apparently more expendable if you’re part of the Arkansas national guard…
by greg—Sep 13, 08:16 AM
Damn. Not only is he in Iraq, but also his house in San Diego has now been evacuated. Hopefully, it’s not burned, too: he doesn’t have renter’s insurance.
by greg—Oct 24, 07:40 AM
I’m hoping that semi-recent Bob Dylan will not turn out to be relevant here—“when you think that you’ve lost everything, you find out you can lose a little more.”
Prayers continue.
by Laura—Oct 29, 06:34 PM