I'm not in the greatest of moods..the anger I felt yesterday had mostly disappated and all that's left is apathy and sadness. I feel like crying, and I HAVE cried. Not for myself, but for my husband, our friends, their families....everyone that's in the same situation I am. Any woman who's love has left her to go serve his country in a foreign land. This war, this conflict...whilst I understand the reasons we're there - I may not agree with some of them, but I DO understand them - has become a huge issue for me, almost overnight. I had become so wrapped up in my own issues that I somehow managed to ignore what was going on in the rest of the world. I don't like being forced back into reality, I would have preferred (as I'm sure most people would) to have done it on my own terms. I'm just so saddened by the whole thing, dig? 650 + Americans, killed. Dying away from home, away from those who loved them the most...dying in the sand, dust and dirt, dying violently. I cannot help but think about how scared they must have been....if they knew they were going to die and wished with all their hearts for one last chance to talk to their families and tell them just how much they loved them. I wonder what they would have said if they had been given that opportunity...
650+ Americans who left home with assurances and promises that they would return, leaving behind cars they thought they'd drive on their return, clothes they thought they'd wear, possessions they thought they'd need or use...who left with plans and promises of engagements and marriages when they returned, of vacations to Disney Land or the Bahamas to somehow try and make up for the time they had to spend away..
650+ Americans who probably truly believed with all they had in them that they WOULD be coming home, because they weren't going to be in that much danger, because they were highly trained and skilled and knew what they were doing, because they had colleagues who wouldn't let them fail or fall...who believed that they had GOD on their side and that HE would protect and look after them...
650+ families left to grieve, to mourn, to scream and holler in pain because the one they loved has been taken from them, to cry and weep and sob because that's ALL they can DO, they're so blinded and crippled by sorrow. Families who had to see that dreaded dress-uniformed officer walking up to their door (any military family member will tell you of the dread of seeing that - that's only ever done when someone is dead), who had to listen while soft words of supposed comfort were spoken to them about how their loved one died for a noble cause - all the while probably wanting to scream at the speaker that they don't know anything about a 'noble cause', that their kids/husband/lover/father/friend is DEAD, gone......DEAD, taken.....
650+ families left to pick up the pieces, to sweep up the hearts and shut them away. To take the clothes to the Goodwill, sell the cars, go through the love letters and journals, to maybe find the ring that was going to be given in fulfilment of the promises made upon the warrior's return....familes having to be strong, to keep going, to try and do the best they can to cope with their loss day after day after day...families watching the news and seeing reports of MORE Americans dying and feeling overwhelming sympathy and empathy for the family of the newest loss because they've been there, they know what it's like; what they're going through.
That, to me, is the real, the human face of war. Like I said, it's all so fucking sad.....