TO HELL WITH WAR

In case your soul hasn't shriveled to the size of a dried lemon pit, this little story should complete the job.

A Sad Little Story

by John D. Amos / July 26, 2011 - 8:59pm / Permalink

Today, I stopped by one of my favorite pawn shops. This one is owned by an individual who runs both a sales business and a legitimate pawnbroker business. He pays well for top quality items and sells them at reasonable prices when the loan is not paid within a reasonable time period. Anyway, as I look though the items for sale, another guy, in his early fifties comments on one item and we get into a conversation. This guy, obviously a republican with a NASCAR cap, makes a comment about Obama taking old peoples' money to pay for wars we don't need to be fighting.

I start to comment, but hold back for some reason. Then, I remark that the entire argument is just a big show, designed by the rich folks so they will not have to pay back the money they borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for our war making.

The NASCAR guy then saddens. The conversation turns to the war in Afghanistan. Lane tells me that his youngest son cannot find work and wants to join the army because he feels obligated to do something useful with himself. Then, Lane tells me that he is against this with his entire being. Then he tells me why.

"My oldest boy has been in Iraq and Afghanistan and over there for six years now. He has a wife and two kids here at home, but he doesn't even bother to come home anymore. When he gets some leave, he just travels to a city in Pakistan and he and several professional soldier buddies like him spend their down time smoking hashish and doing heroin and other drugs. Then when their leave is just about up, they clean themselves out for a week or so so they can pass the army drug tests and then go back to their units and back on duty."

"My boy told me that when they knock on a door and nobody answers, they just stick a pound of explosive to it and get away and detonate it and then go in to see if anyone is still alive, and if they are, they shoot them. This is why my boy does not want to come home anymore, because he cannot not stand to look at his own kids, knowing the stuff he does over there. He is finished and I think he is lost forever the way I see it right now. I hope it changes for him, but I don't look for it to change for him. He's too far gone already, and he won't or can't stop and he can't bring himself to come home anymore."

"The Army and his being over there has ruined my oldest boy, and now the sonofabitch recruiters are hounding my youngest boy at home when I'm not around. I told the sonofabitches to stay away, but I found out that they have still been calling him and talking to him anyway when I'm not around home."

"I will do just about anything to keep him from going over there and getting himself ruined like my oldest boy."

I told Lane that I was a Vietnam vet and that war is always a rich mans war and a poor man's fight. War changes people forever and nobody goes to war without being wounded by it.

"And this war is not needed. What are we fighting for? So Obama and his buddies can get richer." Lane remarked.

"The wars over there are for control of oil to sell to China and other people we owe money to for the stuff we buy there because our jobs have been sent there. Both parties are behind it all and both want the wars to continue as far as I can tell," I explained.

"Seems the same to me." Lane replied.

Presented here with full consent of the author. Thank you John.
Mr. Amos has an ongoing blog at The Smirking Chimp. Access it from here.

HEY, BARACK OBAMA, HEY CONGRESS, READ MY LIPS! NO MORE WAR!