News

I’ve had a couple of emails from Steve. Here’s one of them:

“I found an office where I can get a visa to enter Iraq. I knew there was a reason I lived in Mexico. Doing business here and getting around reminds me a lot of Mexico, so I'm familiar with the routine. Piece of cake!! I'll e-mail you and tell you how it works out.”

Steve was picking up his satellite phone in Kuwait so that he can submit articles to (get your pen ready) Washington Post, San Diego Tribune, Amarillo Globe News, Albuquerque Journal, and some other paper in St. Petersburg, Florida. I’ll let you know when and where the submissions are picked up when possible.


In the other email, Steve said he shared a room with a soldier back from R&R, that they were both exhausted, and that he believed he was nine hours ahead of me (NM time or TX time? I’m not sure.) The short emails are okay, but I sure miss the lengthy ones and the ease of just picking up my cell phone, scrolling down and selecting “Steve”—but, I’m not complaining (yet). Don’t we have it great today, communications wise? This war is different in so many ways, and communications: it’s a bigee.

Sometimes I wonder how “selected media coverage” has affected us. There is a part of me that yearns for the days of old when neighbors had to get out and talk among themselves and share the news that they had so eagerly sought (mind you, I'm not old enough to have lived it, but I've heard about it, read about it.) True, we’d lose some of the bennies we now have, but back then it was war news based on the war. Now, there is so much news, ratings, sensationalism, all those things that come into play, forcing extremism as the hook. It worries me that the media, in order to compete of course, must focus attention to the extremes of Cindy Sheehan or the whackoes from Kansas. Doug, Aaron’s dad, would have probably made the media if these do-gooders would’ve shown up at Aaron’s funeral. Well, we all would’ve been newsworthy that day in Amarillo, Texas.

But I do wonder if the media, television in particular, isn’t partially responsible for the huge split we have in America today. I wonder if the troops envision most Gold Star Moms as Cindy Sheehans. I hope not, but those of us who support the war or protest the war in a less dramatic sense are not very newsworthy, I guess. The same is true for our troops. Unless we watch “War Stories” or the Military Channel, we’re just not going to get that much news on the good being done in Iraq. We are going to hear over and over about the bad, about the extreme. It’s not going to be broken down into reliable comparisons. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending any wrong doing of the individuals in the military who come up with barbaric missions of their own, but also, I wonder if the rapes or torture that have been in the news so much couldn’t at least be brought into a contrast and compare analogy with the rest of us. They could add something like, “Today, American civilians shot, raped and tortured 500 other Americans. Only 300 involved children.”

Or some number. God only knows what that number would be.

40,000 Americans were killed in car accidents in the U.S. this past year, yet we get that news down on the bottom of our 50” screens. I have to put on glasses, turn off my ears, and fully concentrate on reading the fast flow of news cursing around in a dizzy yellow.

I’m sorry, but I’m tired of being inundated with bad news. But worse, I’m tired of the quick flicks of war footage, followed by arguments and opinions in great length, repeated time and time again. Where’s the good news? Well, that’s no news. Why is it no news you ask? Because it happens far too often to be news. We don’t need to “hear” about that.

Mmmmm, where’s my Zoloft?

When the war first started, I was up at 6:30 A.M. to hear the daily news briefing about the war. The loss had a face and a story to it. There was a sense of reverence in the solemn news. A sense of sadness in our loss. Now, I have to read about the fatality down on the bottom of my TV’s screen. To me, something seems very wrong about the way in which news is presented to us. I don’t worry for me, but I do worry for the troops. They don’t have time to “search-out” the news. They have to go out and perform their daily grind with only what they’ve “heard.” TV goes everywhere, believe me.

Steve and I believe that our troops are doing a lot of good in Iraq. Steve is a journalist, so he must write objectively without editorializing in his articles that are submitted (I, on the other hand am not bound by these formal restraints here). Of course, we want it factual, but we want a bit more than we’re getting. You can be sure there are a lot of interesting “facts” to be explored over there right now. Steve told me that as a freelance reporter, he’ll be able to go where the others can’t go. So many reporters, especially if they work for a large newspaper, are restricted to the Green Zone or in some cases, their motel room! Thus, they are forced to hire an Iraqi “stringer” to go out and gather their photos and “our” news.

I’m anxious to hear the rest of our news.

Here are a few links you may be interested in. I can’t add them to our Links on our blog (Steve, I think you have to do that in the “settings” button. I think. I’ve spent a few hours coming to that conclusion), but here they are:

To access, hit the Ctrl. button and click.

http://www.fallenheroesmemorial.com

http://www.usafns.com

http://www.somesoldiersmom.blogspot.com


I’ll pass the good ones along as I find them. These three have a great many links for news, info, and where to go for other help or answers.

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Yesterday I followed my sister’s advice and went to bed. Of course her advice was printed much earlier on our blog than what I actually made it to bed by. So yesterday, what with the off/on coherence of sleep coming 10 cc’s at a time, I was reminded of CQ duty while we were in Panama and how I felt after pulling these all nighters. Needless to say, other memories of Panama followed. Here’s a cute one, at least if your sense of humor is intact.

Doug & I took Aaron to a little church in Balboa, Panama. After a time, Aaron decided that he wanted to be baptized and so went up to the front to tell the preacher of his decision. Aaron was in the third grade, and a little shyer then, so the night before this momentous event, Aaron started getting cold feet. He told Doug, “I don’t think I want to get baptized.” Doug told him that maybe he should pray about it before he went to sleep. The next morning when Aaron got up, he said, “Well, I prayed about it and God told me I shouldn’t do it.”

Long story short, Aaron was baptized in a swimming pool at the motel behind the small church that same day. I guess Aaron had another talk with God.

Aaron did have fear when he was young. I’m sure he did when he was older too, but he either kept it hidden from us, or he just learned to face it head on. I don’t know. Aaron wasn’t one for discussing. He was more for doing. This started about the age of fourteen. I think that was the year he shaved the middle of his eyebrows out for his school picture. Thoughtful of him. We had a few pictures left of him that year.

Have a great weekend and thanks for reading…