Is it real enough yet?

[kellinator]

I 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.

Comments

[gladstone.livejournal.com]

You...know Rob's cousin and B.D. are pretend, right?

[sanityescapesme.livejournal.com]

So what is it that you fear? Do you fear for our troops, or for yourself in the case that the fight may be brought to us? Just curious.

I, for one, am disgusted with how this entire situation has been handled, but how much power do we, the American people, have to change any of this?
I'd like to think we can do SOMETHING.

(fyi, I'll be at Dragon*Con this year, and I'll be going to the LJ meetup, will you be there?)

-R

[amai-unmei.livejournal.com]

We're waist-deep in the quagmire and sinking fast ...

[shaunathan.livejournal.com]

What really scares me is the possibility that they will re-instate the draft. Officials within the adminstration have denied it, but you never know. Granted, I would be exempt from it (probably)) but it still scares me nonetheless...

[azurelunatic]

I've been panicking for a year.

[poprockgrrl.livejournal.com]

Fear.
I know this well.

I keep waiting for something to happen...and I don't mean 1 enormous life changing event (9/11 for instance), but war on American soil. War like WWI, WWII, Vietnam. I fear that it's coming. The whole world hates us...even our "allies".

Where to go when/if it happens...Canada seems nice. Mexico would be good. I could go to Spain and if I couldn't get citizenship even though I was born there, then I'd just live there illegally like a friend of mine's sister.

I'm not proud to be an American.

[squiddna.livejournal.com]

I've begun to wonder if this is the end of the Great Experiment.