For those of you who want to keep deluding yourselves about whether or not we 'bleeding heart liberals' have a skewed and biased view of the situation in the Middle East, stop reading now. And for those of you who feel tempted to reply in some - in ANY - smarmy way about this letter - please don't. This is REAL. This is my heart and soul, my family.

The following letter is from my beloved Adam, who just turned 19 over there, a week ago today. Adam is no wuss, not by any STRETCH of the imagination, as you can tell from his letter. Adam won the Medal of Valor before his 19th birthday. He joined up with the intention of doing what whatever he was called to do, and he is doing that and trying to keep his head up. But he told me the last time he was home, right before he shipped out to the desert, that I was right about my fears, and that he didn't believe in this war, that he thought Bush was in the wrong. This is not some hippie liberal speaking, this is not someone who hasn't got the courage to do what the rest of us won't. If he were fighting a just cause, he would say so, with pride and a loud "HOO-AH!" - and he would feel like he was putting his life on the line for a reason. As it is, he feels like he is finishing a sentence, and just trying to keep himself and his buddies alive until they are freed from the prison of our government's insanity. I warn you, this letter is heartbreaking. It confirms all of my worst fears and suspicions about the ! @#$-up our government has made of this situation and of these soldier's lives.

All of you who think otherwise, up to and including ! @#$ George ! @#$ W. - AND his whole ! @#$ SHRUB clan - can officially kiss my @$$. I'm sorry to be so blunt and rude, I try to be open-minded, I try to see all sides, but if two people, in such very different positions can see this situation the same way, then something is very, very "rotten in Denmark". You can say what you want about MY opinion and feelings on the matter, but the following is the opinion of a very typical, ABOVE average (according to his CO's) soldier living right out on the front line. And no matter how you feel about the politics of the matter, please pray, or send good wishes, or good energy - or whatever you believe - for these soldiers. It is obvious that they need them.

-s

"Howdy from beautiful B-------, Iraq

Hey Sam , sorry it took me so long to write you but I’ve been busy like you wouldnt believe. I’m glad everything is good with you. Being out here really puts everything into perspective and how much those who are close to you really matter. I really miss home and well, just being free to do as I please. I might should have let you talk me out of joining. But its okay. I don’t like what I do most of the time but I am good at it. Life is such a precious thing and it is taken out here so fast. I don’t enjoy taking life at all but you become numb to it all after a while. Combat brings out a person inside of you that you don’t like and who you are afraid of. There’s nothing in this world like that. There is so much hate out here. People that hate us because they don’t know why we are still here. And us soldiers hate them because they have killed our friends who we were hanging out with the other day and who didn’t even know why they were here or what they were fighting for. It's not that we are fighting for a cause that we don’t believe in its that we don’t know what the cause is. We’re just fighting for our lives and that’s all, fighting scared that we wont go home.

[I had to edit this part out because it's a surprise... -s.] I miss you Sam, I miss the porch chats and [and i had to edit this part out because it's illegal. :) -s.]. I miss everything about regular life I should have spent more time with you last time I came home and for that I apologize. And I will not neglect your friendship again this time because now I cherish everything valuable like that more than ever. I’ll leave you now and I just want you to know that I love you and cherish you and I’ll see you soon

Love, your loyal Vice President

PFC Adam P."

ooh, today's google-ads ^ are "quality masks" and "bunny slippers". yeah!

Hello faithful site checkers! (um, that would be ANDI!)
My most sincere apologies for not keeping up with my rants for some time, I’ve been very busy (with mostly good stuff. Some quackery, but a minimum, thank Goddess) and I really haven’t had a topic that set me on fire, at least not one that I really felt like being blasted for*. I hope that it makes you all feel good that I’m not just writing to, uh, hear myself type. I’m really not. I honestly feel bad when it seems as though I have little to offer here, or when I’m seeming to harp, kinda’ thing.
Finding subjects worthy of my good readers isn’t always easy, y’know**? But today one landed in my lap and I think all of you – especially the moms of the group – will find this interesting. This involves folks I know, so I won’t use names. They probably wouldn’t mind, but it’s just polite and journalistically honorable. Bear with me.

A friend of mine has three children, a 13 year-old daughter and two other girls who just turned 11. We were discussing several topics, mainly the changes that each child goes through at the same age, and how one child can mature at a VERY different rate than another at the same ages. We were also talking about how much a single child can change within a very short period of time. One of the girls is turning out to be very “girlie” - short skirts, makeup, lots of pink and denim and those little rubber Madonna bracelets, Boys-R-Us posters, flirty - the works. The other 11 year-old is definitely leaning more toward a serious, tomboy kind of attitude - shorter hair, more practical clothes and accessories, and not so much “frippery”, but still cute and girlie in her own style. The mom said “Can you remember them at this time last year? I would have sworn then that [the “tomboy” one] would have always been my little ‘princess’ and that [the other one] would be the serious tomboy!” I remembered and agreed, and then she said, “Well, you know why [Tomboy] asked to be home-schooled this year, right?”
I didn’t know.
“Well, she announced to her class last year that she was a lesbian and her friends told her later that their families were Christians, and that she was going against the bible, so they couldn’t be her friend any more.”

…

Wow.
A ten year old brave enough to make that decision for herself; a mom open-minded enough to both celebrate her child’s bravery and to also talk to her about not confining herself to one belief so early on; a teacher understanding enough to explain to the child that the friends who shunned her came from a much smaller world than she did (this child and her siblings are bi-lingual, well-traveled and very smart) and that it is just hard for them to understand, THEN have a talk with the girls about how school and religion really are separate things and that everyone doesn’t believe exactly as they do, and that’s ok.
Wow.
Parents (or potential parents, or even siblings and friends), can you even imagine having a talk like that with your ten year old? Can you imagine saying “Well honey, you don’t know for sure, you might be bi.”? To your ten year old? And yet, this is precisely the talk that a parent SHOULD be having in this situation.

I worry so much about the kids I know. There are a lot of them, so there’s a lot of room for worry. Fortunately, most of them are NOT like us (my sibs and I) and actually have parents around, looking after them, wondering where they are occasionally, and if they’ve eaten… I worry very little about whether these kids are happy at home. In fact, now that I think about it, I am a little amazed and VERY pleased to say that of all the children that I am close to (there are some I ‘see around’ that I am not sure about…) have loving families who seem as normal as is possible in this world, and who all seem to be, if not happy all the time (and who is), at least healthy. Mentally, physically, emotionally. That means mad sometimes, hurt sometimes, in trouble sometimes, bored sometimes, etc., but loved ALL the time.
No, I worry about them Out In the World. In school, dating, walking around the town, visiting friends and neighbors, etc. I worry about them being hurt, shunned, un-popular, mistreated in “dating situations”, lied to, beaten up, ridiculed, left out, depressed, disappointed, feeling misunderstood, making bad choices – all the ‘parental’ sorts of worries, I guess. Things have changed SO much since I was 11. If a little girl had told her class that she was a lesbian when I was 11, she would have earned herself a short sharp trip to the shrink and some SERIOUS religious counseling at the very least, not to mention being grounded for life, and possibly corporally punished, too. (That means beaten, folks.) To see this young ladies’ mom’s eyes shine with pride for her daughter’s guts and concern for her feelings, without a trace of disappointment or fear was amazing.
As scary as this world seems, it’s nice to see some things change.
I’ve heard so many people in my life say “If my child came home and said they were gay, I’d beat their ass/kick them out/disown them/etc.” Oh yeah, that’s good parenting - and unconditional love. It is so wonderful to hear of a situation where, first of all, the child felt confidant enough within her parents love to explore her feelings and come to such a mature and important decision about herself, and where her parents were so understanding and accepting.
One friend I mentioned this to said that they didn’t think you could know such a thing about yourself at such an early age. I was “boy-crazy” from my first memories, since I was almost five. Most kids have little crushes on the opposite sex by a very early age, little “boyfriends” and “girlfriends” in play-school and church – why wouldn’t someone know that they had a similar crush on a same-sex friend or idol? It happens though (that they don't "know" this about themselves), more times than not. That’s precisely why it seems so improbable. The majority of children who have experienced this have probably felt terribly insecure, confused, and afraid of what their parents or friends might say or do, and so they hide it from themselves as well as the world. I’ve seen this kind of confusion lead to serious psychological trauma, and create tortured souls, or even near-monsters out of some very sweet, good people. I’d ten-thousand times rather see my child become strong from dealing with the (thankfully) rather mild stigma*** of being “differently oriented” than becoming a twisted shadow of whoever they really are, not to mention a stranger to me and to society, from having to keep something so natural and such a part of them hidden.
I guess the point of all of this is that my faith in the world is restored a little by this tale. ‘Lord knows I need all of that I can get these days. We hear so much of hate and misunderstanding, violence, greed, dissension, and not enough of true, unconditional love, of being one’s self in spite of the odds, of feeling right with who and what you are and what you believe despite the “popular opposition” because you know in your heart that God lives in ALL of us.
Today I celebrate the love of parents for their children, the real kind that never fails, even when that parent is gone, because their words and love and strength and faith live on in their children’s hearts and minds. I celebrate the children who have righteous faith in their parents. I celebrate true, unshakable love of one’s self, belief in one’s self, faith in one’s connection to the Divine.
And I celebrate, most of all, the fact that there some really important and sacred things, despite all the evil in the world, left to celebrate.
"Feed the right wolf" (see 12/06/03 rant), folks.

Much love,
-Sam


*for example: my beloved Adam spending his 19th birthday in !@#$ Tikrit while his mama sits at home and worries (I took her a dozen roses); or the fact that there’s been a little snap in the air lately, and as lovely and pleasant as it is, it means winter is coming. * sigh * * blah * … * BLAR*. : (
**though I really know that you, my faithful readers don’t give a rat’s boo-tay, as long as I’m trying to a. be myself, b. be funny, c. get something off my chest, or d. all of the above.***well, slowly but surely.