Fourth Of July Firecracker

by digby

I’ve been trying to think of an inspirational Fourth of July post and I’m coming up blank. I have written on previous holidays that it’s always been my favorite — partially because I like summer and it’s a holiday with its own music and fireworks and peach pie. And in my experience it was always pretty uncontroversially happy. I don’t feel that way this year, for many reasons, not the least of which is the weighty knowledge that my fellow Americans are still dying and being grievously wounded in Iraq — and nobody can adequately explain to anyone why they or many thousands of Iraqis had to make that sacrifice.

I spent some time recently in the naval hospital in San Diego. It’s not easy. What used to be a hospital full of old men, veterans of wars long past, is now a hospital full of young men and women, horribly wounded. Most of them will tell you that they gladly made the sacrifice and you cannot blame them. It is a terrible psychological burden to believe that your country would ask you to do such a thing without good reason.

I find it a little more difficult to understand why politicians are so stubbornly cavalier about it. Not all, of course. You have that tough old ex-marine John Murtha, who looks at the sacrifice and it makes him sick with regret. And there are others, but too few, who can see that the red haze of post 9/11 fear and bloodlust (if not their own craven political ambitions) led them astray. But most are like president Bush. They simply cannot admit they made a mistake. (When did our leadership become so weak?)

Perhaps you have already seen this video of still shots wounded soldiers of the Iraq war. It’s painful to watch, but maybe this July we need a little pain with our pie to remind us of the stakes in all this. Maybe Joe Lieberman could take a look at it and finally explain to us in simple straightforward terms why these men and women have had to pay the awful price they’ve had to pay.

“I am the living death, a Memorial Day on wheels. I am your Yankee Doodle Dandy, your John Wayne come home, your Fourth of July firecracker exploding in the grave.” – Ron Kovic

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