A Bad Day

Friday night CBS showed some choices for a future news story, one of which would be about some women who attend every Arlington National Cemetery Funeral. My throat got kind of tight and I told my wife that I couldn't do that, after just a couple I'd lose my mind. As I went on to tell her that every time I've heard Governor Kulongoski talk about attending the funerals of Oregonians killed in Iraq and Afghanistan I could see it tearing him up, my throat continued to close up and finally my eyes got all wet. I realized that I was crying. No, not the sobbing kind, water running from my eyes kind.

I'm so tired of our young people getting hurt and killed for this President's little Iraq adventure, so tired I'm finally past words and into tears. For god's sake.

My son Nick goes to Oregon National Guard boot camp next week, that weighs on me some, but it is the shared disaster of those harmed by Iraq that is tearing me up. I would have considerably less reaction to me being in their position, I've gotten to have an awful lot of what life has to offer and I'm on the back side of the game. The back side of the game makes it pretty safe to say that, I'm outside the limits of age, but being safe only actually makes me feel worse about it. I'd make the trade to keep one kid from being there.

All I can see is more years of this, George W Bush is not going to wake up one morning and say, "oops," Congress is not going to de-fund the troops, what is going to happen is another election and that Inaugural Day is two years away. How many soldier's family and friends tears away is that? How many nightmares, how many broken marriages, how many broken bodies and minds and hearts away is that? A lot of Bad Days.

The Governor of Oregon and Vets

Today I attended the memorial service for an old friend and I was reminded how painful it is to participate in a family's grief. Our Governor does this for our fallen soldiers and their families. These are not old men who have lived a full life, these are soldiers whose parents have out-lived their child, whose spouses no longer have the love of their life, whose children will no longer know the arms and kisses of a parent, whose friends have only memories. Their grief is appalling to anyone not made of stone, I share it at a distance, through a TV screen or newsprint and that remoteness saves me tears.

I don't care if you opposed this war from the very first, as I did, or you believe it is necessary now, we are responsible, this is our war and these people are ours. They are acting and dying and being hurt in our name, we don't get to duck that. I cannot and should not go to these services, except in spirit and possibly by representation.

There is no requirement that our Governor attend these services beyond his personal commitment. He undertakes a painful duty because he understands the concept of responsibility, our responsibility, Oregon's. Any person who would voluntarily subject himself to such emotional battering on behalf of his fellows deserves to be acknowleged. It is not just a matter of Ted Kulongoski being a "former" Marine, it is part and parcel with the man's character. I don't care if you voted for TK or not, on this day and those days of memorial service you stand with him, because he's standing in for all of us.

I thank the Governor for doing my job, for honoring those who served to the utmost degree, for honoring those who have lost their loved ones, for making the small acknowlegement that can be made of all of our loss. We are all so much poorer for their deaths.