Is it real enough yet?
Apr. 27th, 2004 02:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kellinatorI just dropped by CNN.com and was greeted by this headline in the red bar at the top of the screen:
"BREAKING NEWS: Heavy shelling reported in Fallujah. Details soon."
I sat there looking at the screen and for the first time in my life, I got the sinking feeling that this was how my mom must have felt watching Vietnam play out.
I remember how terrified I was when Iraq invaded Kuwait, how fearful I was of the United States going to war. And then the war actually happened, and we all know how that went, and I think part of the nation, perhaps, began to assume that all wars would be like that, and now we're learning the hard way that they're not, they're really not.
It's a bad situation that keeps getting worse. I wondered if last week was the week the war finally came home, between the publicity generated by the Pentagon's attempt to cover up photos of flag-draped coffins, both Doonesbury's B.D. and Get Fuzzy's Rob's cousin losing a leg in Iraq, and the tragic death of Pat Tillman. Well, it's finally coming home to me. All the emotions I've been feeling over the war -- anger, disgust, sadness, anxiety -- are currently being dwarfed by one big emotion:
Fear.
"BREAKING NEWS: Heavy shelling reported in Fallujah. Details soon."
I sat there looking at the screen and for the first time in my life, I got the sinking feeling that this was how my mom must have felt watching Vietnam play out.
I remember how terrified I was when Iraq invaded Kuwait, how fearful I was of the United States going to war. And then the war actually happened, and we all know how that went, and I think part of the nation, perhaps, began to assume that all wars would be like that, and now we're learning the hard way that they're not, they're really not.
It's a bad situation that keeps getting worse. I wondered if last week was the week the war finally came home, between the publicity generated by the Pentagon's attempt to cover up photos of flag-draped coffins, both Doonesbury's B.D. and Get Fuzzy's Rob's cousin losing a leg in Iraq, and the tragic death of Pat Tillman. Well, it's finally coming home to me. All the emotions I've been feeling over the war -- anger, disgust, sadness, anxiety -- are currently being dwarfed by one big emotion:
Fear.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 12:46 pm (UTC)And personally, I fear for the people fighting overseas and I fear for the people on American soil and I fear for the civilians in Iraq and I fear for all those people and things you'd expect, but all the fear I feel for them is dwarfed even more by the fear I have for the entire world. What with all this mounting conflict, I just constantly feel like we're on a verge of a breaking point, and it's like -- good lord, what horrific thing is that going to turn out to be?
Anyway, not that you were asking me. <moves along>
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 03:44 pm (UTC)-R
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 03:57 pm (UTC)