War is an Ugly Thing

I was going to comment on Sissy Ben's posts (On Coffins, Circuses, and Civilian Awareness and May They Rest in Peace), because I am in full agreement with Sis B and wanted to offer my support in advance if she decides to march on the whitehouse or on CNN or whoever to let them know how we feel about violating the privacy of a grieving family and/or exploiting the deaths of American heroes to meet their agenda (whichever agenda that might be)...

...but I had too much to say, so I'm going to spill my guts (a little), too.

My opinion is that people are ignorant of the impact of this war (of the "full human cost")because they want to be. If they wanted to know, the internet has plenty of pictures of the war itself and the impacts of the war (the coffins, the graves, soldiers grieving over memorials, families grieving over coffins), or they could just take a stroll through Arglinton National Cemetary, where I've been many times, and you just might see a young widow or another family member sitting or kneeling in front of a gravestone crying or praying or talking to their loved one. No one needs to go digging, violating peoples' privacy to get more pictures. There are plenty out there already.

Many people who heard about that question from the CNN reporter probably didn't even give it a second thought. And that's not because they haven't seen enough picture of the war and the coffins and the grieving families. Its because they don't feel the impact of the words "flag-draped coffins" like those of us who live in fear everyday that our soldier will come home in one. That is the burden of the military family, and we accept it for what it is and we learn to deal with it however we can. Seeing pictures could never lift that burden, and they could never make you feel the same.

I check Defense Link News Releases everyday for names of soldiers who made the "ultimate sacrifice." Everything in the short announcement effects me: the name, the rank, the age, the hometown, the cause of death. It all means something to me. I don't need to see a picture. Go to one funeral of one service member and you will never need to see another picture. The ugliness of war will be burnt into your memory.

So spare me having to see more sad pictures in the news. Don't mess up the good days I have - the days when I'm not missing my husband so badly it hurts or realing from the impact of hearing someone else in my husband's unit was killed or hearing that my friend or my friend's friend was injured. Don't make me come home from work to see pictures on the news of the family crying over the coffin. Many people get to live happy, ignorant lives most days of the week. Let me have my one.