Being Stupid

Really, she meant to sympathize. We’d been talking about Tommi, about the increasingly tense conditions for her on duty in Iraq – it’s not an easy topic to wrap the mind around: the rabbit hole on this one goes deep. Speculations … projections, and the conversation eventually turned to a consideration of her own child, a son now approaching age 18 and the government mandate for registration with Selective Services – a U.S. euphemism for “draft registration.”

Maybe she didn’t think before she spoke. Maybe she didn’t mean the other part of what she said when she concluded, “Jason won’t be so stupid as to sign up. I can tell you that.”

I know her heart. She didn’t mean to say Tommi was “stupid” for volunteering to serve in the Minnesota National Guard … (read) Minnesota … (read) National Guard. It was a study of civic service by young adults in other countries around the world that inspired a sense of civic responsibility and moved both my daughter and son to volunteer for service: the Red River Valley flood, a child lost in a natural game reserve, staffing the local telethon, standing by to secure civic calm should need arise.

Maybe they should have known how “stupid” that was.

Tensions are escalating in Iraq, and Tommi’s feeling it at the gate. “They’re throwing everything they’ve got at us now,” she says, returning from a bunker for the fourth time today.

And here’s what I think: When the full-time army can’t handle the war Mr. Bush has engaged on our behalf, when there’s not enough “volunteer army” to do the job, then a reevaluation of the initiative is in order – let the people of this land face the real questions of resource distribution. There is a price tag on this pastime! Are we really making the best use of $4.7 billion dollars a month in funding this war? And if there aren’t enough soldiers, are we ready to legislate a draft of U.S. citizens to supply the number of soldiers needed for the job we’ve committed to do? How ‘bout that? Are we ready to include our able-bodied daughters this time around? … your child sent to “the sandbox” for a promise of democracy in Iraq? If you had to vote an answer on whether or not to send your own child to dodge rockets in support of this two-year-old “victory,” would your thinking on the subject change? Would your representatives hear from you then?

Instead, we are willing to steal an easy answer! … to take what was never freely given. We DRAFT those who were once willing to commit six years of their lives as citizen soldiers serving in the gap for “homeland security” when those words still meant security at home.

Folks, in the long run (and there will be a long run) that is “stupid.” Think about it.