I hate to have such a negative view of the anti-war belief, but people forget that the soldiers over there made the choice to be soldiers. When war arises, the number of people joining the military rises significantly b/c people want to make a difference! Most soldiers are happy that we are actually doing something rather than just sitting around looking mean and letting Sadam and his murderous, horrible, bloody, SICK SICK SICK regime carry on! War is NOT nice, we are causing people harm, innocent people, but we are doing it in hopes that like the phoenix, something better and wonderful will rise from the ashes. I keep on hearing comparisons to Hitler and the Holocaust. So many peole IGNORED (underlined three times) what was happening then, and more people than you can imagine were subjected to horrible things. I hate the fact that we are at war, we FOUGHT for our freedom. Hopefully the people of Iraq can forgive us and grasp freedom when it happens. I'm under attack from my family on one side b/c I think the anti-war protests are good, but so are the the people supporting the war. I mentioned to Neil that I might go to an anti-war rally and explained my reasons (I like to educate myself from as many viewpoints as possible and thought it would be a great time to get some meaningful photographs) He said that is why he is over there, to protect our rights and freedoms! If he was home he said he would go with me for the same reasons. Neil swore in to the Marine Corp less than a month before September 11th. We thought he would serve his time, get out and start college. It didn't happen like that. I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me, I'm proud of him and he is proud to be an American (DAMN, that sounded CHEESY) On the other hand I will probably get alot of negative feedback from you if anyone actually reads this. Just so no-one thinks too bad of me this is not meant to be a criticism of anyones beliefs, I learn from everyones beliefs and try my damndest to respect them. I'm just exhausted from long hours at work, drained from the media coverage and now I'm crying cause my mom questioned my beliefs and made me feel like a bad person.
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Keep in mind that being anti-war is not necessarily incongruent with being supportive of soldiers. Vietnam gave that a bad name, but then again, even our own veteran's administration is not very supportive of our vets. They still deny that there is a gulf war syndrome. I'm very supportive of our troops and I hope that both sides have little loss of life; indeed, that is the very core reason I am anti-war, I do not want anyone to die because of any leader's desires. So I hope Neil comes home safe for you along with all our young men. The less they have to fight the happier we'll all be.
ps. I hope your boy comes home unharmed....
[Edited on Mar 21, 2003]