Try Helping
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“I support the troops!” was the obviously insane declaration of the old hippie I was arguing with. His gray ponytail flapping in the Berkeley breeze was a flag of suspicion. But being a cagey animal, I first asked exactly how he was supporting the troops.
“I’m trying to bring them home.”
I laughed, and with what is now a well practiced follow-up replied “Seriously, what have you done for an actual enlisted man or woman. Have you donated to a family relief fund? Helped build a wheelchair ramp at a wounded soldier’s house? Welcomed home a vet? Sent some cookies to the battlefield?”
He snorted and in a challenging way asked if I had. A stone cold “yes” shut the old hippie up and thankfully got him and is lingering aromatic mixture of pot and patchouli to leave.
Helping men and women who risked it all requires only slightly more brain cells than the old hippie had left. There are more ways to help than you have time to research.
The best place to start is at America Supports You web site. The links there guide you to any of a zillion local or national groups who help service men and women and their families. If you are stuck trying to decide how to help, then drill down into the “help for the wounded” section. They need the most help, and deserve every ounce of it.
Don’t be an old hippie (but that should go without saying).
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4 Responses to “Try Helping”
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If you have polite and articulate comments, please provide them. Rants and flames are discarded.
I notice you don’t have an answer to his arguement.
Perhaps your tactic is to project your own guilt onto him, make him feel bad, to you make sure you feel ok..
Sending money to the troops is like giving medicine to a lab mouse, while patting it on the back.
I must admit that a greying ponytail is not the most attractive thing in the world, but then neither is an ageing red-neck.
As I understand it, in the UK we supported the war on Iraq because of supposed ‘weapons of mass destruction’ that we never subsequently found.
Personally I no longer believe what the governments and media say because I think it is mostly spin.
I also found this article interesting – ‘High-Level Officials Warn of Fake Terror’ -
http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=6432
Perhaps you should consider helping some more victims.
http://www.sea-urchin.net/radiobaghdad/pics/victims.jpg
Apparently the reasons we invaded Iraq were –
‘Two main rationales for the invasion were offered by U.S. President George W. Bush and coalition supporters: the allegation that Iraq was actively supporting and working with al-Qaeda, and that it possessed and was actively developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in violation of a 1991 agreement’ – from wikipedia
And yet –
‘After the invasion, the Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had ended its WMD programs in 1991 and had none at the time of the invasion, but that they intended to resume production if and when the Iraq sanctions were lifted. Although some earlier degraded remnants of misplaced or abandoned WMD were found, they were not the weapons for which the coalition invaded.’
And -
‘Some U.S. officials claimed Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda had been cooperating, but no evidence of any collaborative relationship has been found.’
So it seems they were wrong about both the reasons for going to war, but if you’re a politician being wrong is normal, and only a minor inconvenience, it doesn’t seem to mean that you ever have to apologise for it or resign or anything like that, and if you’re a skilled enough politician you can still make youself look good and justify hundreds of thousands of deaths.