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Kneecapping Barack Obama at every opportunity. | ||
I work in an office. It’s a typical office, full of bad fluorescent lighting, soothing pastel cubicles, and no windows. For eight hours a day, I sit in a room with a group of men as we go about our daily lives, earning a living. And it is quite a variety of people that I work with. I am the youngest person in the office, 25 years old. The next youngest is a man who’s in his late 30’s. We run the gamut, from ultra conservative to ultra liberal, and even though we all get along, we can occasionally break out into a heated political discussion.
Like the discussion we had today. On September 12th, 2003. The day after the two year anniversary of 9-11. The anniversary of the day after my world changed forever.
In my office, there’s a man. He’s a good man, quick to joke, good at his job, and kind to me. In his youth, he was drafted into Vietnam. He fought in that war, saw his buddies die in front of him, felt the bullets whiz by his head. He fought in blood and mud, and he survived. He’s a Democrat. He’s anti-war. He doesn’t like Bush. He thought we should have stayed out of Iraq. He thinks we were fighting for oil.
Today, this man got upset. He got upset because someone was complaining that anti-war protestors were anti-American. He got upset because someone said liberals are anti-American. He got upset because in his view, the people who are for the war in Iraq were never in war themselves, and are therefore, ignorant. He says people who are anti-war are not anti-American, that the people who protest are doing the most American thing there is.
I disagree.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think individual people are bad. I think individuals are smart, and good, and want to genuinely help others. I do, however, think certain ideas are bad, and I think those ideas can lead otherwise good individuals astray. And I have come to the conclusion that those individuals are overwhelmingly Democrat, and that those individuals are overwhelmingly anti-war.
I don’t blame this man for thinking like he does, nor do I blame the other Americans who share his views. Why? Because I think I know the answer. I believe I have come to understand the reason behind his views.
He is from a different generation.
He is in his 50’s. I am in my 20’s. There is a generation gap. This man, along with many of the politicians in our government, along with many of the celebrities in Hollywood, along with many of the parents and teachers and journalist currently out there… are old. They grew up in a different time. They grew up in a time when their government betrayed them. They grew up in a time where their government was not protecting them. A time when politicians were evil. A time when war touched every facet of their lives. A time when strife was a way of life. They grew up during a revolution, where a generation who felt abandoned by their leaders, by their government, and by their parents, had to rise up and evoke change.
And they did it. They changed government. They focused on the plight of those less fortunate in society. They rebelled against the “good old boy’s” club. They empowered those who never had power. They attacked corrupt politicians. They withdrew us from a war they believed we had no business fighting in.
They changed the way America was. And for that, I am thankful.
Why am I thankful? Because growing up, all I had to worry about was saying “no” to drugs and getting good grades in school. I didn’t have to worry about being drafted against my will into an unjust war. I didn’t have to worry about my government not protecting me. Why? Because my parent’s and their generation fixed that for me. They changed the way America worked, and made it safe and peaceful for me and my generation. I never had to worry about fighting a war. I never had to worry about seeing my friends get killed in front of me.
I had it easy.
That was this man’s argument to me. I don’t know what war is like. It’s easy for me to stand before him, with my youth and inexperience, and tell him going into Iraq was the right thing to do. It’s easy for me to say we should send our best and brightest over there to be killed for “oil.” It’s easy for me to say I believe in our president, to not question his actions, because I’m not aware of the way the real world works.
He is deathly wrong.
The difference comes down to this: In his time, in the time of my parent’s and their generation, they had to be shipped half way around the world and live in a hostile jungle for their lives to be on the line. Now? All we have to do is walk outside. All we have to do is drive to work, go to a movie, or go to a shopping mall to put our lives at risk, because in my world, the post 9-11 world, anyone can be the enemy. Anyone can have a bomb strapped on them in a crowded place. Anyone can randomly send a deadly biological weapon through the mail. Anyone can take a rifle and snipe at us from the freeway. This is worse than Vietnam. There, Charlie was hiding in the jungle. Here, Charlie is hiding right next door.
9-11 made me realize that.
This man said I’ve never been to war. He’s wrong. I’m a soldier. I’ve been drafted, like him, against my will to fight in a war I don’t believe I should be fighting. But, I was not drafted by my government. I was drafted by the terrorists. I was drafted to make sure that every time I fly in an airplane, I keep a look out for anyone who could be trying to hijack it. I was drafted to be on the look out for terrorists and their plots.
This is my war. I am in it, and so is everyone else. We’ve been fighting for two years now.
That is what people fail to realize. My home is a war zone. If I go abroad, I am still in a war zone. Why? Because I’m an American, and in this day and age, that’s all that’s required to be at war – not because we chose it, but because it was forced upon us. Everywhere we go is our jungle, with Charlie lurking in the shadows.
Not a day goes by when the possibility of my family, friends, and loved one’s being killed does not exist. It doesn’t matter if they’re at home, or traveling, or going about their daily business. They are in danger, as am I, as is everyone in the United States. We are at war, we’ve been at war for a long time. Long before the U.S.S. Cole, long before the first World Trade Center Bombing, long before the Oklahoma City Bombing. We’ve been at war for years, we just didn’t know it.
9-11 woke us up.
I used to be pretty liberal. In college, I considered myself a Democrat. My friends were pretty liberal too. Our parent’s had raised us with their beliefs, and we, by default, believed them. But what we didn’t have was the reinforcement of those beliefs. We had a good, stable government. We didn’t have riots on campus. We weren’t being shipped off to war. We didn’t have a Nixon, or a Kennedy, to show us the extreme good and bad that can exist as our head of state. We had a good economy, we had computers, we had MTV, and we had a bright future, with no worries.
No more.
I grew up in a world where I could trust the government. My parent’s generation made sure of that. I grew up in a world where I believed the military is not an evil entity. My parent’s generation made sure of that. I grew up in a world at relative peace, without a draft. My parent’s generation made sure of that.
And yet now, that same generation can’t understand why I believe in my President. They can’t understand why I cheer for the military. They can’t understand why I’m in favor of war.
Well, their generation had Vietnam. My generation had 9-11.
And they can’t understand that.
I see liberals every day on TV. I see journalists like Katie Couric, Sam Donaldson, and Peter Jennings talking about a “quagmire.” I see celebrities like Alec Baldwin, Ed Asner, and Danny Glover talking about how they’re ashamed of America. I see anti-war protestors, some my age still sticking with their parent’s beliefs, equating my President to Hitler. I see Vietnam Vets, like the man in my office, saying we should keep our military at home, and worry about protecting our own land, and not worry about what’s happening in the rest of the world. And I see Democrats, calling for a regime change, and urging us to put our safety in the hands of the strangers at the UN.
They do not represent my generation. The Greatest Generation is gone. The Baby Boomers are a setting sun. Generation X is dead. But Generation 9-11 is alive and well. I woke up on September of 2001, as did many others like me. We have to live with losing friends and loved ones that day. We have to live with being cautious every day after. We have to live with sacrificing some of our freedoms for the greater safety of others.
This is the dilemma we see every day. Me, and others like me, want to trust our government. We want our troops, who have selflessly volunteered to fight for us, to go wherever the terrorists are hiding, and kill them before they can kill us. We want our Homeland Security to tell us to be careful. We want to believe our President is doing what’s best for us.
My parent’s generation wants to recapture the 60s. They still live in those days where the government was corrupt, where the military was evil, and where America was in the wrong.
My generation wants America to be right. And we believe we are.
This is our world war. My grandparent’s had Germany and Japan. We have Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention Iran and North Korea. We are all soldiers, and we are all patriots. We fight every day, not only against those who wish to do us bodily harm, but those who wish to do us mental and spiritual harm as well. We fight against anti-war ideals and isolationism, which have never worked. We fight against a media inundated with negativity. We fight against politicians who wish to sell us out to the UN. And we fight against the sixties generation and their disciples, who still believe we are not at war.
But it is war. It’s a different kind of war. It’s not the kind our parent’s grew up with and it’s not the kind they can understand. But me and my generation, we’re coming to understand it very well.
So when this man, who works in my office, looks at me and says “You don’t know what it’s like.” I can’t help but think…
He’s got it backwards.
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