"I had no idea," Lori said, though she believes her daughters always knew active duty was a possibility. "It seemed like a great thing. We were at peace."
I get it. It was great as long as the benefits came with no sacrifice.
I'm sick of this. The media (and too many Americans) want a WAR on terror without any BATTLES.
That's exactly what Mr. M and I were saying as we read the story in this morning's paper about the family with three girls serving in Iraq, and one recently killed. Our fathers went off to WWII and were gone for years at a time with no phone cards, no email. Casualties were in the thousands, week in and week out. My grandfather went off to fight in WWI, where we lost some 50,000 men in a single four-week period in the summer of 1918.
This is - and always has been - the price of freedom, and the soldiers know it. Perhaps, in our modern volunteer military, they join up for job training and education benefits, but the bottom line always has been that a soldier may have to fight and die. We've become spoiled and soft, and all too willing for someone else to make the sacrifices. Another WWII memory of my mother's - ration stamps, no gasoline, no butter. Would we put up with that today? I wish I could say with confidence that the American people would be willing to make whatever sacrifice were necessary for the cause of freedom and justice, especially after the attacks of Sept 11, but it isn't likely.