Supporting the troops

So, I'm reading this book called The Long Road Home by Martha Raddatz. It's a really well-written story that follows soldiers from their base in Texas to Baghdad in 2004. Man, I'm not in favor of the war but I always said that I support the troops. What's interesting is that, while I support the troops for just doing their jobs no matter how silly their boss may be at times, I didn't get the magnitude of their bravery until I read this book.

I'm not even done reading it, but the point is that she puts a face on the numbers that we hear on the news. These guys probably represent most of the 20-30,000 serving in Iraq now. They're dads and very young and most of these guys had never shot anyone, never been shot at, never seen a dead body. One doctor was a pediatrician who had never seen a bullet wound. Then they arrive for their "peace keeping mission" and end up in a gun battle. It's just crazy because they were TERRIFIED. And this book gets that point across. They also didn't have the armor and vehicles they needed, but I won't even go into all of that.

I've always said that I support the troops and that's why I'd like to see them return to their families. After reading these stories, I have to really give it up to military wives. What they go through is like a breakup that won't end for a year. I can't imagine loving someone and then seeing them go off to war or "keep peace" in Iraq.. I've always assumed that military people don't have strong political views, which helps them to their jobs, so I doubt they dislike the war. Of course, when it hits home it doesn't seem like it matters one way or the other how you feel about the war. These guys in the book don't all make it home, some came back missing parts because they were attacked.. and just as depressing as the attack is that they were surprised. They thought the people would be happy to get their help since the war had ended a year ago

Rocking all black today

I'm excited that the Jena 6 is finally getting some mainstream news coverage. Sure they may have mentioned it before, but ABC and other outlets have flown reporters in to cover the march. They even asked the President about it today in a press conference. He wasn't really trying to make a statement about it race relations. He said he wants justice to be fair or something like that. He focused on the judicial process that may have failed, but avoided the racism that caused its failure. Typical.

I'm off to the March in DC.. as a reporter. I know I've always been a journalist, but I've recently learned that news reporters can't march and support causes. Boy this is going to be tough.