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Springfield, Missouri, United States
Char-Marie * Twenty-Nine * College Grad * Stay at Home Mommy * Web Designer * My Husband Colby * My Son Emery * Friends * Family * Yoga * Sweet tea * Shoes * Shopping * Music * Independent Films * Sushi * Mimosa * My nieces Maggie and Macee * Missouri

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Monday, March 06, 2006

In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.

(Picture of my Dad in Vietnam.)
Last night I met my parents after work, and I had an interview with my dad. I had mentioned here. It's an interview with a veteran from the Vietnam war and its all on camera, then it goes to the Library of Congress. Last night I got the privilege to interview my dad for this project. I am so proud of the things my dad had to do and endure. A couple parts of the interview I thought I was going to break down, but I held it together. A few things he just told me flat out, "It's not something I want to remember, I don't really want to talk about it." He left out some things because he didn't want us to hear some of the cruel things that happened over there.

Here's where I rant:

I've been keeping up with the news and this is really really bothering me. A church from PA is picketing the funerals of the soldiers killed in Iraq, holding up signs that say: "Thank God for Dead Soldiers," and " You're going to hell." If it were my family who went over there, and lost their life in something that they thought was the right thing to do---and someone was picketing their funeral, you'd have to throw me in jail. It makes me so angry..A young man from Joplin, MO died last week in Iraq and they've said that they're coming to picket his funeral as well. They just stand there with these crazy grins on their face, screaming all of these horrible things while the family is mourning the loss of a loved one. In my eyes--how can they call themselves Christians??

I sat and listened to my dad talk about how he was treated when he came home from Vietnam. He was spit on, called a baby killer, a war monger. Three people tried to run him over when he was walking on the side of the road with a cane--trying to get home because his dad was dying of cancer. He went over there thinking that he was helping those people a little by maybe letting at least one married man stay home with his family, thinking that America was behind the soldiers...Maybe not the war, but the men who HAD TO go. He said, " They said that we were the lucky ones, that we were the one's who came home. I think that the lucky ones were the ones who didn't come back because they died thinking that America was behind them, that they were being supported. This may be cruel sounding to you, but a lot of us feel this way. I'm still very bitter over seeing our troops come back and be treated worse than animals."

There are people who don't support this war going on right now, but we should support our men that have enlisted and are on hand waiting to defend us. It doesn't directly affect any one of us if we do not have someone over there that we love. We're fine and safe in our homes, but those men, whether they enlisted when 9-11 happened or have been a part of the military for years and years, are in my eyes the bravest of individuals, willing to risk their lives so we don't have to. I'll thank them for the rest of my life.