As I was impatiently waiting for my connection at the Minneapolis airport, which had already been delayed a few times, I met a girl who was a few years older than me. As we were talking she told me that she was in the Air Force. She has not been to Iraq yet but will be going this summer. When I said that at least she hadn't gone yet, she told me that it gets really hot in Iraq in the summer, making it one of the worst times to go.
As we were talking, I had to fight back the tears welling up in my eyes and the tightness in my throat. Not only would she be entering into a life-threatening situation in less than half a year, she could have been me. Many of our concerns as students seem so trivial compared to those of soldiers, even though we are the same age.
As I'm writing this my main concerns are whether or not I'll be chosen to be a house fellow, if more bad weather is on the way, and if I'll be able to balance all my extracurricular activities and school next semester while soldiers just like me in Iraq are mainly focused on safety and survival. Some of them will never return home, while we go about our daily lives as if none of this is happening.
It is time to pull out of Iraq. Each one of us could be over there right now risking our lives for a reason that the current administration is still having difficulty articulating. If they can't explain why we are over there, how can we possibly allow more American lives to be lost?
Although some may argue that it is our duty to liberate people in other countries from oppression, America is just one of many countries in the world. Why are we so busy trying to liberate others when there are so many domestic problems that have not yet been resolved? Instead of focusing on the growing deficit and relatively high unemployment rate, the current administration is choosing to turn a blind eye and continue the war on terror. But at what cost?
How many more troops will lose their lives before we as a country wake up and realize that this war is wrong?
Others believe supporting our troops translates to supporting the war, although it could also simply mean wishing the troops well and praying for their safe return. The first meaning is purely propaganda that aims to make people feel like they are anti-American (as bad as Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, in fact) if they don't support the war.
Furthermore, while the troops are in Iraq, we aren't even doing all we can to help them. We are currently so entrenched in politics that Dane County cannot even do the right thing by giving phone cards to the troops instead of low-income inmates in the Dane County Jail. Although our troops and criminals both made conscious decisions that led to their current situations, shouldn't we be rewarding the troops for making the right ones?
My biggest wish for this year is that we begin to see how wrong this war truly is and speak out against it while continuing to do all we can to help the troops remaining in Iraq. Although many of us did the right thing and voted for Kerry, the majority of the country failed to see the truth about the war. We should not let this loss squelch our voices and watch passively as soldiers continue to lose their lives in Iraq. Hopefully by speaking out, others will be less afraid to do the same and lives will be spared from future combat in Iraq.
