War is not the answer...

WITH ALL THE FREE TIME I HAVE IN THE SUMMER I HAVE BEGUN DOING ODD THINGS:  BINGE WATCHING Game of Thrones, cleaning out old photograph albums, and googling myself.  Because, you know, every once in a while you need to do that.  I forgot that I had started a blog once before.  IN an effort to keep my ideas all together I am reposting here.  

THURSDAY, APRIL 13, 2006

As a bleeding heart liberal, I have never been a big fan of war as a means of resolving an issue. I work with high school kids - I realize the innate fallacies in a plan that says "Do what I want (or stop doing what you are doing) or I'll hurt you." We tell our kids violence is not the way to solve problems, yet we have one of the largest militaries in the world. Hmm, can we say hypocrisy?

Yet I'm not naive enough, or enough of an optimist, to think that the world could operate without armament. I just wish it didn't have to be at the expense of so many people's lives.

My brother enlisted in the army in September 2005. He will be shipped out to Iraq in June or July. The last time I'll get to see him in over a year will be this Saturday. My brother and I aren't the tightest siblings around, we fought like nobody's business when we were little, but as we've gotten older, we've gotten closer. There are some things that no one, except your sibling, can share with you. Nobody else can share exactly what it was like walking into our brand new house in Canton, Georgia. Nobody else knows the exact trauma we caused each other when we dressed up as the "manly woman" and the "womanly man" when we were little.

Adam and I grew up together. He's only 20 months younger than me, but he'll always be my baby brother. We went down different paths - I was always a schooly, he struggled because of his learning disability. I was a "goodie two shoes" kind of kid; Adam was always getting in trouble. My wildest taste in music was Nine Inch Nails; Adam was in a death metal band called Axe Minister. I'm the uber liberal in the family; Adam leans to the right of center. We're on different roads - but we started at the same place. And our paths WILL intersect again - many a time. I keep telling myself this, because the alternative is unthinkable.

So while I don't support a war which is more about our interests in foreign oil than anything else, I do support my brother and hope he does not have to see, or be a part of, irrevocable traumas and tragedies. We have so many naturally occurring bad things - let's not make any more for ourselves.