Contrary to popular belief, I do work.
Sometimes.
For instance, last night, we went to a movie. Body of War documents the struggle of Tomas Young, who joined the Army on September 13, 2001, to fight the evil-doers behind the September 11, 2001 killing of almost 3,000 on our soil, to regain meaning in his life after being wounded in Iraq. Soon after he enlisted, he thought he would be going to Afghanistan, anticipating looking for and finding bin Laden and those responsible; but he ended up in Iraq.
On his fifth day in country, without having fired a round, he was shot just below the level of his collarbone, severing his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed below his armpits.
Most telling about U.S. policy toward Tomas Young was his meeting with a Vietnam vet with an almost identical wound, who asked Tomas how long he had been hospitalized, to which Tomas stated he had been in Walter Reed Army Hospital 2 1/2 months and then several months in a rehab facility. The Vietnam vet told Tomas he had been "short shrifted" and that the vet had been hospitalized for a year with a year in rehab.
There are thousands more like Tomas Young, who are given short shrift by the government, even though they have sacrificed their bodies and souls at the order of the Commander-in-Chief. The devastation of not only young people's bodies, but their families, and the psyches of each, is unseen by the American public. It's a dirty secret kept by the government -- with the complicity of the mass media.
If you have the opportunity to see the movie, you must do so. Florida Senator Bob Graham, when he saw the movie, said that it should be required viewing for everyone over 18 and should be required viewing on every college campus in the country.
It was disturbing. It was eye-opening. It was moving.
After that heart-wrenching evening, I had to be in court today. The courtroom was quite small with only three rows of seats for spectators and for the participants waiting for their cases to be called. Outside the door, across the narrow hallway, is another courtroom. the proceedings had not started; the door was open.
I had seen the 18-ish-looking kid with the long white t-shirt and sagging designer three-quarter cut jeans just outside of the security checkpoint. His head had a short stubble, which may have been blonde before the scalping. He spent far too much time in the morning shaving so as to leave a 1/4-inch wide attempt-at-a-beard that framed the lower part of his pale face.
He announced to the young lady and younger man, who had apparently accompanied him, that: "Sometimes they switch up courtrooms on me. They do that from time to time."
It was, therefore, not his first time in this particular court house. And it was highly unlikely that this was only his second visit. He was overly familiar with the surroundings and the court house procedures for someone so young.
But he still had not learned how to dress for maximum benefit.
Posted by Bill at September 15, 2008 10:05 PM