Fear, anger and a son too far away.
T.A. Barnhart
My daughter-in-law Molly reports that Alex (and, I assume, the rest of the 41st Brigade) has arrived safely in Kuwait and is enjoying the 120-plus heat. Yes, enjoying: The humidity of Georgia is no more, and that is a good thing for a young man born and raised in the Pacific Northwest.
In Kuwait, it's past midnight. Alex and the rest of the Oregon National Guard contingent (which includes troops from other states) have had another day going through the final stages of preparations for wherever they are to be sent in Iraq. Getting used to heat of this sort is a critical issue, of course; none of the training they've been through the past three months could really have prepared Alex for heat of this kind.
He is, in fact, not prepared for much of anything he is to face. He's never gone to any place where there could be someone waiting to kill him. Heat? Dust? Distance from family? How about a few million people who hate that he's in their country? What part of the training prepares a kid from Corvallis to face hatred of that kind — the kind where a bullet or IED is the possible outcome of that hate?
So getting used to 122-degree heat in Kuwait is the easy part.
In a few more weeks, they begin patrolling Iraq. I know Alex is excited to get to that, to start the "real job". For him, the past month has been a matter of marking time. He's been ready to go for quite a while. He's a soldier, and he wants to do what he sees as a soldier's job.
I'm a soldier's father. My grandfather, my dad's dad (for whom Alex's younger brother was named), had the same soldier's job when he was a Marine in the 20s that Alex has now: He occupied a sovereign nation. In Grandpa's case, it was Nicaragua (somewhat ironic: in the last 80s, I would help the family of Ben Linder, murdered by American-sponsored contras in Nicaragua, when they tried to create something good from the legacy of Ben's death). I know Alex does not share my view that this is an immoral occupation of a nation that the United States invaded in violation of international (and probably U.S.) law; he just sees what he's doing as his job as a member of the Oregon National Guard. Soldiers are good at doing that, disguising war as a job. If they were unable to do that, the generals and politicians would have to put their own damn asses on the line to do the fighting. Few soldiers really want to kill other human beings.
Now that Alex is over there, the panic that had been gripping me in the weeks, and especially the days, before his departure has oddly diminished. It's like a dreadful task or confrontation that freaks you out for so long: once you get started on it, it's just unpleasant and not so terrifying. Which isn't to say I do not fear for my son's safety. Once he gets to Iraq, it's a crapshoot. Who knows what kind of crazy he'll run into. Or if Bravo Company, the outstanding unit he serves with from Corvallis, will get sent to some particularly nasty area. Like Afghanistan. If any of these Guard units is sent to hard duty, it'll be Bravo: Last time over, they were sent to Falujah.
But, as I said, now that he's over there, I'm no longer on the brink of overwhelming panic. Instead, I'm simply sinking into a semi-depressed lethargy. I want to sleep; I want to stay home from work; I want to snack and do busy things that take a lot of concentration; I want to be distracted. I do not want to think about what's going on and what might happen. More than anything, I do not want to feel what I am feeling behind all my other thoughts and feelings:
Anger.
I am so angry, I simply have no room for it inside me. I cannot express the anger anymore than I could speak two full sentences about my fear last week. Both emotions are tethered with the frailest of lines; the tiniest nudge sets off an uncontrolled plummet into darkness. It is not a good way to be. But it is the nature of my life for now.
I am angry, of course, with the chicken-shit bastards in Congress who let Bush and Cheney start this evil war. Anyone that voted for the 2003 Authorization should be, as the phrase goes, frog-marched out of the Capital and dragged before the World Court to explain how they could possibly justify the combination of arrogance, stupidity and inhumanity that was necessary to authorization to invade Iraq — and kill over 100,000 innocent people.
I am angry at the American people whose self-centered, piss-ignorant fearfulness (where is our cherished trust in God?) let them approve with hearty cheers and huzzahs the tossing of their children into the maw of war. The steadfast refusal of too many Americans to learn a goddamn thing about the world and people who are neither bad nor wrong but merely "foreign" has resulted in this obscene war and occupation. The blood of all those who've died or been torn apart by this war is on the hands of an American populace with no desire to care about the rest of the world unless they can feel all warm and fuzzy via a tax-deductible charity.
I am angry at my son who turned his back on what his mother and I tried to teach him: That all life is precious, that service to other people is meaningful, and that the practice of war is always — always — wrong. I'm pretty sure he doesn't see himself as a warrior supporting Bush/Cheney policies; but when he carries his gun into that occupied territory later this month, that's exactly what he will be. I hope and trust that as he grows older, when he returns to his wife and baby and begins his life anew as a civilian, he'll gain a broader perspective and wisdom. I know, of course, he'll learn what he learns and not what I wish he would learn; my own father has had to tolerate that fault in me, and I will tolerate it in Alex.
But more, far more than anyone else, I am angry with myself. I am angry for years of opportunity and possibility that went past fruitlessly. I am angry that I let circumstances control my decisions, that I allowed the weak-ass excuses of divorce and employment set my path for me. I am angry that I did not raise a son with my vision of the world. That I did not stop this war. That I did not halt the funding of the invasion. That the one time I met and spoke with Barack Obama at a campaign event in 2007, I did not convince him to agree to withdraw all troops by the end of his first week in office.
I am angry that I have failed as terribly and miserably as any loving parent could. Yes, yes, I know: I am being irrational. I know that; I may be an irrational failure, but I'm not stupid. My life no longer exists in a place where the rational means anything. The world is a twisted place, coarse and sick and too eager to crush beautiful young people into meaningless pulp. Parents must forever worry for their children, of course, but we should not have to suffer this sick, endless, undeniable dread that makes me less and less functional in the mundane world from which my son has been removed.
I think about Alex, in his uniform with his equipment, tall and strong and handsome; he looks uncannily like a young Marlon Brando. He is smart and charismatic. He is very well-trained, and I do not believe he will panic under any circumstances. If this were about him doing his job to the best of his ability, I'd have not the slightest care. His brother is in the Coast Guard, and I don't worry for his safety. Jesse, too, is smart and capable, and I know his job is not risk-free, but there is a major difference: Coast Guard duty does not include the very real possibility of roadside bombs and snipers. Out at sea, Jesse's on a big-ass cutter with so much weaponry that no drug-runner is going to do anything but scuttle their boat and then surrender.
But this is not about doing a job. It's about being in a place where over 5,000 Americans have died while serving as he will be doing. Where tens of thousands more have been wounded, many terribly. We like to think the danger is over; after all, who hears about Iraq on the news anymore? But Americans stationed in Iraq continue to die and be wounded; they are still present, and, therefore, they are still hated. They are still targets. And if he is sent to Afghanistan — a possibility not to be taken lightly — his risk goes up greatly. He may think of this as a job, but that's a euphemism and nothing more. The real word is "occupation". In the eyes of many Iraqis, he is an enemy.
And behind all of this, another fear, another source of anger: My children are precious to me, and as much as I fear for Alex's safety, I fear even more for what 10 months of being an occupier might do to his soul. 10 months carrying a gun, facing down civilians with hostility in their eyes, being the aggressor in a country in which our forces have no right to be. I know how the experience of war affected the fathers of friends in high school; I have heard those who passed through Iraq speak of what it did to them and their comrades. I fear for the person he may return as. Given what we have seen since we invaded Iraq, I honestly do not think this fear is irrational.
I want my son to return as sweet and good as I know him to be. I fear that war may take that, and more — and worse — away.
I'll finish in as good a place as any that I know of: the words of a song. Reckless Kelly's "American Blood" is angry, bitter and sad; it's also dead accurate:
"They sent him off to a foreign land,
Gave him a new pair of boots and thirteen grand
And he came back home with American blood on his hands."
 |
More Recent Posts | |
Albert Kaufman |
|
Guest Column |
|
Kari Chisholm |
|
Kari Chisholm |
Final pre-census estimate: Oregon's getting a sixth congressional seat |
Albert Kaufman |
Polluted by Money - How corporate cash corrupted one of the greenest states in America |
Guest Column |
|
Albert Kaufman |
Our Democrat Representatives in Action - What's on your wish list? |
Kari Chisholm |
|
Guest Column |
|
Kari Chisholm |
|
connect with blueoregon
4:24 p.m.
Jul 13, '09
Thanks for this, TA. I can't imagine how hard it must be. Keep us updated.
4:46 p.m.
Jul 13, '09
Our family will also be praying for your son's safety, TA. And I hope, as this war winds down, that his duties will let him do things you can be proud of. That the people of the region will see him and his companions as a respected peacekeeper, rather than a hated conqueror.
Jul 13, '09
Godspeed, TA, to both you and Alex.
Jul 13, '09
TA: Let me compliment you on this post.
"It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. " General Smedley Butler
Jul 13, '09
Thanks for your useful info, I think it’s a good topic.
10:43 p.m.
Jul 13, '09
T.A., it is hard to express my admiration for your willingness to share these feelings and thoughts and expose yourself to any number of kinds of responses.
I don't know if you had a chance to see Jim Lommasson's art/ documentary exhibit, "Exit Wounds," made in collaboration with Iraq veterans & largely composed of their photographs and words. Jim embarked on that project in part as a result of coming to understand late in his father's life how deeply his father's life and his own had been changed by his father's experience of war in World War II. Parts of that story might confirm one version of your fears, I think, of what war might do to your son.
However, I would like to tell you another story about another World War II veteran. This man was someone I was supposed to interview for an oral history project relating to a Portland institution of higher education. Our interview was set for March 19, 2003. When the U.S. began it's "shock and awe" attacks on Iraq on March 18, it led him to cancel the interview -- the attack was just too depressing and overwhelming and angering for him, so much did he hate war sixty years on.
The point of the story is what that man was like after his time at war. I knew him in the 1970s and early 1980s when I was a college student and he was dean of students (he had been a student himself at the same institution and had graduated early to go to the war). He was a wonderfully humane man, not perfect, no one is, but kind and sympathetic and always seeking the best for his charges according the best lights available to him, always seeking ways out of trouble, seeking to help, seeking to resolve conflict, going to great lengths in that quest.
From his response to the invasion of Iraq I believe he hates war with a deep and abiding passion; I suspect that he was hurt deeply by his experience of it in ways I don't and probably can't understand, there are so many ways that can go, not just what one does or doesn't do oneself, but what happens to those you are with and become close to in a particular way, things you see that you can't prevent or stop or influence.
But though I don't know exactly what the wounds were that he carries or what caused them, I do know that that they did not destroy him or his capacity for humaneness and fellow-feeling and caring and love, nor his capacity to act with great effort on those parts of his character -- to reflect upon whatever it was that he did or didn't do, saw and heard and felt and thought, and to decide to carry on according to values opposed to what the war meant for him that made him hate war as such forever more.
And, while he spent much of the time I knew him, in his job, dealing with hard and painful situations, he was also a man of good humor, who knew the value of a smile and laughter. He could not keep his war from hurting him, I believe, but he kept it from destroying his humanity.
Thinking of my own child, I know you cannot help but fear that war may destroy or harm your son in some profound way. It would be both pointless and wrong to try to persuade you from that fear, or the angers it provokes that you express so movingly. The story of this man I know in one sense I suppose even confirms parts of those fears.
The only point of it then is that men and women also take such harms and shape them to better ends at times, face the facts of what they've experienced and say, what then shall I do now? in ways that don't undo what can't be undone, but do make something else happen, make worthwhile things happen.
I will hope that your son is harmed as little as may be possible, and that he will take whatever he experiences in such a way. I'm confident that if it is in your power to help him with that in his future path, you will do so.
Sala kahle (keep/stay/remain well).
Jul 14, '09
If you want to play well in RS game,you can buy runescape items and runescape powerleveling in our website.
4:00 a.m.
Jul 14, '09
TA,
Try to stay positive and not let it eat you up inside. I'll keep him in my thoughts.
Jul 14, '09
TA, my hopes and best whishes for a safe return for your son.
Bill Bodden, that's an interesting quote you posted from the general. Regarding his opinion that he was fighting for people looking to increase their wealth and power, did you not know that's why wars are always innitiated? It has been so ever since the first head of a clan decided to take over another clan by force. It has always been true for the whole of human history, and unless our species undergoes some kind of radical change, it will always be true.
Of course, people are fed all sorts of stories of patriotism, we've got to protect ourselves from this or that, but in the end, wars are innitiated to increase wealth, power, etc.
6:03 a.m.
Jul 14, '09
T.A.,
YOUR incredible strength and courage to share these feelings must be the reason for your son's choice in life. I will be praying for your son and for you and your family. Please keep us updated.
Jul 14, '09
TA - maybe one day you'll grow up to be just like your son.
Jul 14, '09
TA, my prayers go out for the protection of your son. Your heartfelt post is compelling, even though several of us may find certain portions that we disagree with.
War is generally viewed as a failure on the part of politicians and our young sons (and now daughters) are sent off to fight in far away places. The military, sworn to uphold our Constitution and obey our politicians is used as both hammer and anvil.
Iraq is more a failure in that the very politicians who rushed us into that war did not serve, and therefor could not learn the lesson of, Vietnam. My father, a 23 year career Marine Corps officier and 2 time visitor to SE Asia summed it up clearly when my oldest son turned 18. "Let me know if he wants to enlist in the Marines or Army; I don't want my grandson dying in the sand somewhere far away for some politician's avarice."
8:55 a.m.
Jul 14, '09
T.A.
I hope you filter out the haters that will inevitably trash your efforts here. This is absolutely the best writing you've done here, in my opinion. You've laid bare all of these complex and layered emotions...and that's what makes it so good.
As a parent, I can imagine how excruciating it must be for you. Thank you for having the guts to lay this out there.
Jul 14, '09
"Bill Bodden, that's an interesting quote you posted from the general. Regarding his opinion that he was fighting for people looking to increase their wealth and power, did you not know that's why wars are always innitiated? It has been so ever since the first head of a clan decided to take over another clan by force. It has always been true for the whole of human history, and unless our species undergoes some kind of radical change, it will always be true."
General Butler made very much the same points. I would suggest you do an Internet search for Smedley Butler and read the results. My quote was to help TA possibly understand his son's point of view. It wasn't intended to encourage TA to agree with that view and one that I certainly don't buy.
Jul 14, '09
Here is another father-and-son story that is apropos that I received a few minutes ago from Greg Palast:
"It's been a good week. Robert McNamara's dead and my book, Armed Madhouse, was released in translation in Vietnam.
"I don't blame McNamara for losing the war in Vietnam. After all, the good guys won. I do, however, blame him for losing World War II.
"In 1995, in Chicago, veterans of Silver Post No. 282 celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of their victory over Japan, marching around a catering hall wearing their old service caps, pins, ribbons and medals. My father sat at his table, silent. He did not wear his medals.
"He had given them to me thirty years earlier. I can figure it exactly: March 8, 1965. That day, like every other, we walked to the newsstand near the dime store to get the LA Times. He was a Times man. Never read the Examiner.
"He looked at the headline: U.S. Marines had landed on the beach at Danang, Vietnam.
"Vietnamese gun boats had attacked American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. The Times said so. President Johnson said so. His Defense Secretary Robert McNamara said so.
"But on the Oval Office tapes, Johnson said, "Hell, those damn stupid [US] sailors were just shooting at flying fish." McNamara corrected him later. They were shooting at their own "sonar shadow." But that, of course, wouldn't be mentioned in the Times.
"My dad didn't need LBJ's tape to know: they lied.
"As a kid, I was fascinated by my dad's medals. One, embossed with an eagle and soldiers under a palm tree, said "Asiatic Pacific Campaign." It had three bronze stars and an arrowhead.
"My father always found flag-wavers a bit suspect. But he was a patriot, nurturing this deep and intelligent patriotism. To him, America stood for Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Four Freedoms.
"My father's army had liberated Hitler's concentration camps and later protected Martin Luther King's marchers on the road to Birmingham. His America put its strong arm around the world's shoulder as protector. On the back of the medal, it read "Freedom from Want and Fear."
"His victory over Japan was a victory of principles over imperial power, of freedom over tyranny, of right over Japan's raw military might. A song he taught me from the early days of the war, when Japan had the guns and we had only ideals, went,
" We have no bombers to attack with . . . But Eagles, American Eagles, fight for the rights we adore!
"'That's it,' he said that day in 1965, and folded the newspaper.
"The politicians had ordered his army, with its fierce postwar industrial killing machines, to set upon Asia's poor. Too well read in history and too experienced in battle, he knew what was coming. He could see right then what it would take other Americans ten years of that war in Vietnam to see: American bombers dropping napalm on straw huts, burning the same villages Hirohito's invaders had burned twenty years earlier.
"Johnson and McNamara had taken away his victory over Japan.
"They stole his victory over tyranny. When we returned home, he dropped his medals into my twelve-year-old hands to play with and to lose among my toys.
"A few years ago, my wife Linda and I went to Vietnam to help out rural credit unions lending a few dollars to farmers so they could buy pigs and chickens.
"On March 8, 1995, while in Danang, I walked up a long stone stairway from the beach to a shrine where Vietnamese honor their parents and ancestors.
"Halfway up, a man about my age had stopped to rest, exhausted from his difficult, hot climb on one leg and crutches. I sat next to him, but he turned his head away, ashamed of his ragged clothes, parts of an old, dirty uniform.
"The two of us watched the fishermen at work on the boats below. I put one of my father's medals down next to him. I don't know what he thought I was doing. I don't know myself.
"In '45, on the battleship Missouri, Douglas MacArthur accepted the surrender of Imperial Japan. I never thought much of General MacArthur, but he said something that stuck with me. 'It is for us, both victors and vanquished, to rise to that higher dignity which alone benefits the sacred purposes we are about to serve.'"
"Excerpted from "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" (Penguin 2003)."
Jul 14, '09
Thanks, T.A. I finally understand where you stand.
Re: "...did you not know that's why wars are always innitiated? It has been so ever since the first head of a clan decided to take over another clan by force."
When the invaded clan resists militarily, when the Iraqis fight back (or the Afghanis or the Vietnamese), is that also a problem for you?
The problem is not war, which is sometimes warranted. The problem is imperialism. The problem is the whole history of U.S. rationalization of slaughter and torture.
1:46 p.m.
Jul 14, '09
Bill, thanks for bringing up Smedley Butler. between his words & those of Eisenhower (farewell address warning of the military-industrial complex), we've known all we need to know about the "defense" of our nation for decades. someday we may choose to heed that wisdom.
i am terribly proud of both my sons. this may seem contradictory, but that's a right all parents possess. disappointment in one regard does not take away my pride in others.
i hope he has a very boring time in Iraq, if you know what i mean.
1:47 p.m.
Jul 14, '09
Do one nice thing for your daughter-in-law each week or someone else in need. Turn your anger into creative action. How can a country lead the world when it fails so miserably at community? The relationships we need to live peacefully among one another cannot be born by a society so engrossed in superficial relationships. We all have a lot to learn.
1:50 p.m.
Jul 14, '09
Tyler, yes, it is a problem for me. war in any form is a failure. WWII may have been a great victory (ok, it was) but it never should have been necessary. beginning with the punitive sanctions at Versailles, the path was laid for Hitler to take advantage of the misery and anger of the German people. the Marshall Plan demonstrates what can be done to end enmity between peoples.
our nation was wrong to invade and occupy Iraq; that does not make the shedding of blood by Iraqis or others right. violence is failure. period. all that blood shed for liberty over there and what do they have? a nation barely able to cope and probably incapable of avoiding civil war.
Jul 14, '09
"i am terribly proud of both my sons. this may seem contradictory, but that's a right all parents possess. disappointment in one regard does not take away my pride in others."
I don't agree with the men and women who go off to fight in Iraq, but if they believe in what they are doing and are prepared to put their lives on the line for what they believe in, then they deserve respect for that. That is in sharp contrast to the people who initiate wars but make sure they or their own get nowhere near harm's way. It would be much better if these young men and women on the front lines devoted their lives to making this a better world than risking their lives in a continuation of the Bush/Cheney folly. But that is life and we all make our own mistakes. With a little luck we learn from the errors of our past and do our share to make a better future.
4:54 p.m.
Jul 14, '09
I've said it before -- I can't imagine it. And again, I've said it before, your writing always touches me.
Your son is starting a life-altering experience, as you are. There's no way a parent can see his/her child go off to war and not be forever altered by it. It's completely admirable that one of the things that you've done with that experience, so far, is taken it to a creative and brutally honest place by writing this post.
5:34 p.m.
Jul 14, '09
TA, my thoughts and prayers are with your son and our warriors anywhere, and their families.
Three years ago, upset with US foreign policy and our wars in the Middle East, I was looking for something constructive I could do in Oregon to change US foreign policy. Just being another voice against the war in Iraq would not be enough for me. After some reflection, I became an advocate for more Mandarin programs in Oregon's public schools, thinking to help avoid a potential war with China someday. I've now added advocacy of a general high school study abroad program, again thinking educational changes could help the US avoid future foreign mistakes.
May your son come come safely!
Jul 14, '09
Bill Bodden--
Palast's essay starts as follows:
"It's been a good week. Robert McNamara's dead...."
Dunno, celebrating someone's death seems mighty peculiar to me. Here's the start to an imaginary counterpoint essay:
"It's been a good week. Bill Bodden's dead...."
Kind of catches in your throat this time, perhaps?
Jul 14, '09
Bill Bodden--
Palast's essay starts as follows:
"It's been a good week. Robert McNamara's dead...."
Dunno, celebrating someone's death seems mighty peculiar to me. Here's the start to an imaginary counterpoint essay:
"It's been a good week. Bill Bodden's dead...."
Kind of catches in your throat this time, perhaps?
Jul 14, '09
Joel, Read this by Joe Galloway and then you might understand. 100,000 reasons to shed no tears for McNamara
T.A. Military Families Speak Out might be of some help. They know exactly what you are going through. http://www.mfso-oregon.org/
My nephew was in Afcrapistan for 15 months (stop lossed) and every bit of bad news from over there was cause for a cold sweat.
Jul 14, '09
Your anxiety is understandable and not having a child in that position I wont pretend to know exactly how you feel. That being said, your son is a grown man serving of his own volition. Much as you may oppose the mission, that's the mission he has committed to. You either support that or you don't. That's just how it is regardless of ones political predispositions. My thoughts & prayers are with you and them.
10:18 p.m.
Jul 14, '09
Brian, life ain't that simple. i do not, cannot, will not support the mission of the US in Iraq. that position does not take away one bit from either my love of my son or my support for him to be a good, strong person and to be successful in his own eyes.
and i'll tell you this: i oppose his mission far more than he supports the mission, per se. he's there to do a job, not support a mission. in this mess, there is a big difference between the two. a big difference.
Jul 15, '09
"It's been a good week. Bill Bodden's dead...."
Kind of catches in your throat this time, perhaps?"
Joel: If I had on my conscience what McNamara had on his I might find death a relief.
Jul 15, '09
War
Weapons are tools of ill omen Wielded by the ignorant. If their use is unavoidable, The wise act with restraint. The greatest sorrow is to be a veteran, Witness to the atrocities of humanity.
Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao Daily Meditations
Jul 15, '09
I hear you T.A. and wont pretend to know or tell you how you should feel. Hell, if I had my way the Iraq invasion never would have happened. But it did. U.S. forces were sent there in droves and remain. Wont be out of that region anytime soon. Joining the U.S. Army or Marine Corps in 200x = signing up for that mission. The law of probabilities says you will most likely visit Iraq, Kuwait or Afghanistan. That's the reality and yes, life really is just that simple. Probably why guys like us went with Air Force & Coast Guard. Not because were cowards but because we weren't particularly interested in the whole combat thing.
So, I support your son, hope his mission is as successful as possible and pray for his safe return. The fact that I don't approve of the decisions that created the position he & his comrades find themselves faced with becomes secondary to my support for them. It is what it is.
Jul 16, '09
Re pacifism: If you're paying taxes to the war machine, and if you're working for candidates of the war parties, the claim that you're against all war rings hollow.
When the machine is working injustice it is the duty of conscientious citizens to be “a counter friction” – that is, a resistance – “to stop the machine.” (HD Thoreau, a real pacifist)
Jul 16, '09
[Off-topic comment removed. Use Google to find what you're looking for. -editor.]
Jul 28, '09
Wow, "Dad". You have got to the be one of the most selfish people on the planet. This is a disgusting piece of writing.
Jul 28, '09
Todd - I wholeheartedly agree with my nephew, Alex, when he says you are one of the most selfish people on the planet. How dare you?! "Tolerate" in Alex! It's not for you to tolerate or not tolerate anything regarding him. As a parent, it's for you to love unconditionally. However, you always were a terrible parent, and ARE a terrible parent. You don't have the right to the title "Dad".
1:36 p.m.
Jul 28, '09
Cindy, if you ever come back to this, you are the last person on earth to judge me.
Jul 28, '09
Todd, I can't possibly imagine why you would say that I'm the last person on earth to judge you.
You are a self-centered, pitiful coward who uses a blog to bring attention to yourself because you have no other way to get people to notice you. You are pathetic. I have no sympathy for you whatsoever.
It is obvious you are writing this blog for yourself, not Alex. We may not approve of his choice of employment, but we love and support him. Always. We are sad that his choice to enlist in the National Guard came to this, but it was his choice. How would YOU know if he's prepared for this or not?! Simply enough: you don't. What have you done, specifically, to help bring this war to an end? What have you done, specifically, to bring the genocide in Darfur to an end? What have you done to end ANY war, Todd? Complain? Your article is all about you, not Alex. Really, it has nothing to do with Alex. It's all about poor little me, poor Todd. Waaaah. Grow up Todd. Please. Keep your whinings to yourself and not submit other people to your sorry blatherings.