DUers I need to say this

[never_get_over_it]

Ok a few minutes ago I read a post about Frist which set me off which happens most of the time now when I hear anything about staying the course of this occupation. I thought to myself for God's sake you know Frist is an ass why do you let him get to you like this and then it hit me.

Just shortly over a year ago my 33 old nephew was killed in a VERY STUPID car accident. I got the call very early on a Sunday morning 6:00 AM or so - but my brother (my nephew's father) obviously got the call several hours before me. I learned from my brother's wife that he got the call probably about 1:00 AM or so and did not wake her and literally sat in the dark for hours - probably in shock. Once we were all notified and funeral arrangements were made we gathered to bury my nephew. Trust me you do not EVER want to watch one of your siblings bury their only child. Since that time I think often of three people, my brother, my nephew's mother and my nephew's seven year old daughter. It literally breaks my heart to think of their loss.

It is very easy for me to visualize my brother receiving that phone call - and it is very easy for me to visualize all over this country a family getting a phone call or the knock at the door or however the military delivers the ungodly news. How many times a day once twice three times - it actually haunts me to think of it. I think of people who I don't know and never will getting this notification and it breaks my heart and enrages me. I would have been completely against this invasion and occupation even if my nephew hadn't passed, but his senseless passing has made it worse - and I'm not comparing a car accident to being killed in Iraq - only in the sense that both result in death and both are STUPID and for NOTHING.

Anybody else think about the family notifications?

I also think often about all the Iraqis we have killed or caused their deaths because of this outrage. People just trying to live their freaking life like us - you know go to work, raise your family whatever and oooooooppppps shock and awe.

And all of this has occurred because of a stolen election in 2000 giving power to, a pathetic drug addled frat boy and his evil greedy friends

God will someone stop this freakin insanity.

[Virginia Dare]

1. Yes...

and I force myself to read the obituaries for the burials at Arlington Cemetery. Each of these soldiers had lives and families, they each had hopes and dreams for the future, and each one should be remembered as an individual, not just as a number.

[swimmernsecretsea]

2. Thank you.

I can't say anything that will ease your loss, except that I thank you for posting. I think of this image frequently. My father passed away from a massive heart attack. He was dead before they got to the hospital, shortly after midnight. My Mother waited until 6am to call my sister and brother because she didn't want to disturb them so early. I think often about she waited in the empty house for hours, with nobody to comfort her, until she decided she could call.

I think often of the families that receive the military personnel at their door, and know before it is said what news they will be getting.

[Malikshah]

3. This statement is what separates us, alas, from the Frists of the world

It is very easy for me to visualize my brother receiving that phone call - and it is very easy for me to visualize all over this country a family getting a phone call or the knock at the door or however the military delivers the ungodly news.


For Frist and those that support him and his ways-- the ability to visualize others' pains is absent. They are completely and irretrievably (sorry for the SP) incabable of empathy.

In the end, I believe, this is what makes many of us here different from the Free Republic types. We need to find a way in which we can use the empathy as a tool of strength.

[nmliberal]

18. I've said the same many times

So I obviously think you are exactly right on. They have no ability or desire to try to put themselves in anyone else's shoes. They don't get the 'there but for the grace of God am I' concept.

[annabanana]

4. I have to turn my mind away or I cry.

The phone call in the middle of the night, the formal tread up the walk in dress uniform.. Both horrify. The pain that they signify are unbearable.

[Cybergata]

5. Bravo

I savored every word you wrote. I've gotten those calls about my mother, my brother and my father. My mother and brother died too young. Every time I read the names of the latest victims of this war no matter what country they come from, I remember how it feels to get those phone calls. It breaks my heart as well.

[CTyankee]

6. I have been haunted by the thought of those 2 soldiers

and what torture they must have gone through. I only hope and pray that they lost consciousness early on. I cannot imagine the pain of their families, or any family that has sustained a loss from this war.

My brother died of a stroke rather suddenly and I had to rush to Dallas from CT and be the one to tell my elderly mother that her son was gone. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. She wasn't the same ever again and died within the year.

I'm glad we have DU to share the agony we all feel over this war. A new day is coming, folks. I am certain that we will all be a part of it.

[itzamirakul]

7. Your post makes us think. It makes up mentally walk a mile in

another person's shoes.

But there is one thing that REALLY bothers me. That is when I hear parents of soldiers talk about how much they believe in this war and how right we are for fighting it. It bothers me when I hear soldiers talk about how right the war is, although I understand that they have to keep themselves in a mental state to be able to fight.

But when the parents believe in this lying administration and are proud of having their children fight this unnecessary war, then why ask my support for those troops? They obviously don't need it, nor do they need my sympathy if something happens to the child they have sacrificed for Georg Bush's War. I know this sounds hard-hearted, but asking my support for a child that the parents have willingly and proudly sent to war is like trying to force me to accept and support the war itself.

[annabanana]

8. I don't know what went into the decision to join up

nor would I presume to know how people bring themselves through mourning. My sympathy is without reservation.

[never_get_over_it]

9. Interesting that this has come up

yesterday I had an incident with my sister. She sent me an email entitled Stuck on Stupid and its contents was a total Cindy Sheehan bash. I got so freaking pissed that I wrote back a VERY nasty note and copied the woman, my sister's friend, who had sent it to my sister. Now I'm sure my sister is quite pissed at me for doing this but I just can't stand the stupidity anymore and am not going to keep quiet. During this whole incident I was thinking about the military families that feel the opposite of Cindy Sheehan and although I don't agree with them and believe they are misguided I would never bash them the way this email bashed Cindy Sheehan. Grief is a very personal thing and nobody should judge another person's grief. Also I imagine it is much easier psychologically to believe your loved one died for a noble cause as opposed to dying for NOTHING.

[itzamirakul]

10. I think that to offer sympathy without reservation makes you a

very great person (in this aspect at least). And it is in the small but important things like this that people differ from each other while continuing to share some larger concepts.

I find it difficult to feel sorry for people who brag about killing another race of people and call the sand n.....s and ragheads, and who kill innocent families for no reason at all and then lie and say they were shooting at insurgents and then who broadcast those feelings to us...along with their families who support the legal cruelty their sons and daughters are committing. I am certainly not happy when I hear of the death of ANY of our troops.

[roody]

12. I believe that it would be too heartbreaking to admit that

they are dying and killing for nothing. It is unspeakable and beyond belief. They want to believe that it is for good.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

11. it 's just a number. geeze.

"who we honorin today?"

[earth mom]

13. Thank you for the heartfelt post, I can relate....

My mom was instantly killed by a drunk driver 24 years ago. It happened around 11 pm. I was at my boyfriends place (now my husband) and my dad called around midnight and told my boyfriend to bring me home right away. It was a hellish half hour drive because we both knew something bad had to have happened for my dad to demand that I come home like that. When we reached my parents house, my brothers were there as well as a family friend. When my dad told me that my mom had been killed, I screamed in pain and fell to the floor, sobbing.

Whenever I think of that moment, I can feel that searing pain again like it just happened a moment ago...

September 11th, American soldiers deaths, Iraqi deaths, Katrina deaths: ALL have made me feel that very same pain.

My heart breaks for the families who have endured these senseless deaths because the dead are all innocent people who did NOT have to die!

:cry:

[jarnocan]

14. and who was that repub jerk

saying something about how dare the Dems think about some "cutting and running" BU**SH**, after those 2 mutilated dead soldiers were found.
So let's just keep sending them to "do their job", and the insurgents can keep on what they beleive is doing their job, killing and dying, more "cannon fodder"! Of course Afghanistan has erupted into a full blown war too again.
Will we be able to afford the likely earthquake that may hit anytime, in southern CA, or more massive hurricanes, global warming, or upcoming droughts and fires? Apparently this summer is going to be very long, hot and dry. We have so much going on in this country, and in our world, yet we keep fighting wars instead of preparing for other likely catastrophes.

[roguevalley]

15. I am so sorry for this. This is as sad as it gets. I hope you get your

wish, honey. Hugs to you and yours.

[Major Hogwash]

16. This hit me where I live.

Thank you for your post.

The message is so true.

[ninkasi]

17. Thank you for bringing this up

So many families, so many friends, will get word of a loss that will devastate them. The phone call, the walk up the sidewalk, and the fear when that phone rings, or there is a knock on the door, brings unimaginable grief to so many. In Iraq, it's a daily thing for relatives to search for missing family members, and making trips to the morgue, or the hospital, dreading what they will find.

The pity is that the men who wanted this war don't care how many other people are grieving, or how many lives will be changed forever, or how many will live, but never again with a whole body, or their eyesight, or a damaged mind. They don't care. If it does not affect them, they don't care. If thousands of people have to suffer and die so they can make a profit, they don't care.

They have set themselves aside from common decency and compassion, and the agony, the grief, the destruction is just something they can brush off, because THEY DON'T CARE. People like you, and so many others here on DU are caring, and understanding, and that's why we must get the uncaring ones out of office.

[corkhead]

19. If we don't "stay the course" on the Titanic, we embolden the icebergs

no, wait...
um...
never mind.

[never_get_over_it]

20. Thank goodness global warming will take care of

those pesky icebergs

Thanks for the post I think I just might borrow this expression - made me laugh and I needed that!