Last week was the 63rd anniversary of the D Day Landings, in France.
I find it sad, that we have learned so little, about the great sacrifices of the young and eager men and women, in the war to end all wars.
Sacrificing is not always, to die for a cause, or being mortally wounded and dying of those wounds many months later when they have dropped off the radar.This is certainly much more than anyone expects of them. We hope they will return victorious and minimize their hardships so the next generation of gladiators will go blindly, into a full of adventure frolic, without fear and with the sense of immortality, oozing from every pore, into the cauldron. That is, until the day, one of their illusions is shattered by the sight of one unidentifiable corpse. That is when the adventure turns to reality. "My God ...Someone can get killed here"
A man jumps off a bridge in Oshkosh and the media gives his story
three columns , two pictures and 8 minutes of air time.
Eight servicemen are killed by a roadside bomb and a comment is made
two days later or not at all. Their body count is simply added to the monthly total.
We are so happy to read about our servicemen returning.We seem to keep forgetting how many are not.
Yesterday I wrote something about sacrifices. I digressed for a few lines and today, June 12th, I would like to get back to that subject.
Judge Judy Comes on at 4PM and the 5 o'clock news follows on the Fox network on channel 8. A lot of local news,weather, 7 children in a house fire, the PGA, baseball, the issue of "illegal immigrant rights", a mountain climber with an injured ankle stranded on a mount rescued by a ski patrol of 30 on the west coast, three seals returned to the L.I.Sound waters from Mystic, Connecticut. All this followed by the 6:00 pm news and from 6:30 to 7:00 pm Charles Gibson, with world news and national coverage. This 2 hours of "News Babel" did not contain one minute of what happened in Iraq. My point being, National Guardsmen enlist in this fine service for many reasons, none of which, is to go to some foreign overseas country to save and protect America. These men and women are sacrificing their lives, their children's welfare, their parents, and their spouses hopes and concerns. As a result of the Guardsman's absence, their families suffer greatly...causing them financial hardships, foreclosures on homes and the constant threat of death to their loved ones. Surely, when they sit looking for news in front of their T.V. and none is forthcoming, they must think that the world has forgotten them.
