Vox

Dear Armchair Pundit:

This may be too long to qualify as a comment. If so, feel free to consign to the blogosphere wastebasket. I am sorry for her son & I am sorry for Ms. Sheehan, although I am not quite as sorry for her as I might be. Part of my sorrow for her has been diverted into a channel of repugnance by the way she’s behaving.

I was glad & relieved to embark on a military adventure when I was 17 years old. I was a high school dropout & had been moping around the house in a depression for over a year. I knew by then that I was in serious trouble as far as prospects in life were concerned. I didn’t know how to get a job & my confidence level was so low that I was beyond trying. The manager at the nearby store had looked at snaggle-toothed, gawky me & snickered when I had gathered my small bit of courage & haltingly asked if he had a job. That ridicule had destroyed me, had chopped me down like a sapling in a field.

But here was this recruiter who didn’t laugh, didn’t roll his eyes or curl his lip with disdain. My Navy recruitment officer in Houston back in 1960 was blunt about the wages, something like "You’ll never get rich, boy," & a chart of the pay scale was handed to me. But I wasn’t after big money; I was after a life; I was after something to be. I will admit the recruiter did not stress the possibility of danger, but I had seen a lot of war movies & knew that if any shooting started I would be expected to put myself at risk. I was young but not so dumb that I didn’t know that.

So her son probably knew but I guess Ms. Sheehan didn’t know that her son stood a chance of being killed by dint of joining the Army. No, that was an aspect of military life she had never contemplated. Or maybe she believed that her son’s death could only happen during a war of which she approved.

Ms. Sheehan I am sorry for you, but the President did not steal your son from your arms. Your son walked into a recruitment office & must have known, even if you do not, what that meant.

Ms. Sheehan I am sorry for you but your son was not a victim. Your son is a hero. Your son died so you can shed tears on CNN & have a retinue of reporters follow you & so you can be famous for awhile & draw a lot of media attention & be fawned over by those who are against the war.

Ms. Sheehan I am sorry for you but there are others who are pleased, although they will not say so - yes, happy that you have presented them with a perfect storm of a mother to help them blow away & sink Iraq like a scuttled ship. They care nothing for your dead son but they will shed tears - oh yes, a river of hypocritical, sanctimonious tears from avid, eager eyes upon your head & breast & you will shed tears on them, too. And everyone will be covered with tears on CNN & in the pages of the New York Times & probably on NPR & perhaps even Aljazeera. Fame is a wraith that whispers in our ear. Fame is seductive.

Ms. Sheehan I am sorry for you but when you tire of camping in Texas will you pitch your tent outside the door of the Iranian delegation to the United Nations? If you do your new-found friends will be nowhere around. Will you hold up the photographs of your son outside the Syrian embassy in Washington & shed some tears onto their doorstep? If you do you will find that those who now promote your grief better than Barnum promoted freaks will then be gone.

Ms. Sheehan I am sorry for you but do you realize the ones who killed your son are nodding smugly to each other & smiling & chuckling at what you do?

Grief is embracing one another in the alcove of the funeral home. Grief is choking on tears but continuing with the eulogy. Grief is the hollow resonance of dirt falling onto a coffin. Grief is reminiscing with family & friends. Grief is remembering 10 years later what their voice sounded like. Grief is as mute as an empty room. Grief is as hushed as a wreath.

Ms. Sheehan I am sorry for you.