I’m on summer break from Cookin’ School for a few weeks, so I drove Down South to spend some time with my friend L, her little girls and, very briefly, her husband, who got deployed to Iraq for the third freakin’ time.
On the drive down, Wiley got to stay in his very first hotel, a Red Roof Inn in West Virginia that had so many dogs it should have been called the Red Woof Inn. As you can see from the photo, Mr. Kittenheads made himself at home quite nicely and was in no rush to leave the A/C and free WiFi.
L’s husband had to leave with his battalion a couple days after I arrived, and I went with them to the farewell they had for all the soldiers.
Regardless of what you think about the war in Iraq (I don’t want to sound smug or say "I told you so," but I was vehemently opposed to it even before we went in, and my negative feelings about it have only soured more with time), I think everyone should be required to attend a deployment farewell. It’s one thing to slap a yellow ribbon "Support the Troops" bumpersticker on your car, but it’s another to stand in a hot, airless gym crowded with so many young families and crying children and grimly stoic soldiers.
Here’s a shot of L’s husband saying good-bye to their two adorable little girls. This scene was being replayed by the hundreds all over the gymnasium grounds, and I couldn’t help but wonder what the Bush twins were doing at that very moment. Pedicure maybe? Pilates class? Or maybe just a Thursday night kegger.
Yeah, yeah, I know some of you are saying "but it’s a volunteer army, they knew what they were getting into when they signed up." Whatever. I don’t think people should be put in harm’s way, volunteers or not, unless it’s for a damn good reason.
As the sun set, the troops assembled and boarded buses for their flight to Germany, and onward to Iraq from there. This is the third or fourth time many of them have been deployed, and it’s going to be another 15-month tour. I hope every one of them makes it back healthy and whole... just in time to elect a new president. I hope there’s a candidate worthy of their vote.
6 comments:
OK, for the first half of the post I was trying to figure out how my tax dollars were paying Wiley to live it up in a Red Woof Inn.
Yeah, I'm kind of slow.
And btw, that's *not* Wiley's first hotel (unless you meant you were returning the first hotel he ever stayed in). Don't you remember that we stayed with him and Kosmo in a Super 8 or something when we did that Not-So-Devilish Lake/Disappointing Cranberry Bogs/You-Call-Those-Neolithic-Mounds trip right after 9/11? Remember how freaked Wiley was every time one of us was out of his sight. He *spooned* with me in my bed that night.
Which reminds me to say, I was surprised he never got up on our bed in Rust Belt, and thought maybe he's just getting too old and arthritic, so this picture surprises me, too. Was the bed low?
Oopsies.... You're right, he was not a hotel virgin. I forgot about that stay, mostly I think because I've tried to repress the memory of taking you on a circuit tour of the great state of Wisconsin only to find disappointment at every stop!! Derrrrrrr... And yeah, the bed was lower, so even achy-boned Deputy Dawg had no problem gettin' up and stretchin' out...
Okay, I must defend Devil's Lake. At what other very-inland lake can you either scuba dive or watch stupid climbers kill themselves. About once a year someone slips and crashes on those sharp rocks and dies. Doesn't that count for something? And, I'll have you know that Major Zoe climbed the highest rock formation in 95 degree weather when she was 9 1/2. Talk about stupid climbers...her mother, that is.
And tell L we keep her and her husband in our prayers. Such bravery and courage should not be spent on this.
"It’s one thing to slap a yellow ribbon "Support the Troops" bumpersticker on your car, but it’s another to stand in a hot, airless gym crowded with so many young families and crying children and grimly stoic soldiers."
I have been thinking about this for days and days I just want you to know. Thank you for writing it. And, of course, for having been there to tell us about it.
thanks, shuna... let's hope we live in a world soon where you don't have to think it and i don't have to write it, ya know?
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