"How many cares one loses when one decides not to be
      something, but to be someone" ~~ Coco Chanel

THERES A HANDFUL OF THINGS THAT I MISSED

One small book reading I can’t say I've had

Bows on the strings of my shoes

Sweet smelling sheets pulled up to my chin

A bandage to cover my knee

Fresh homemade cookies

Or a P B and J

Made by your hands … And only for me 

Hugs at the door when I come in from school

Or worry when I am not there 

The glance which is made when I walk down the street 

(Into places that shouldn’t have been)

The moments of pretty or special

One dress picked only for me

A room or a bed... to call all my own

In a place which I could call home

Bring Them Home

I grew up knowing my dad had been a pilot in World War II. I have his flight jacket and pictures of him in his uniform, and standing in formation with his platoon. Every Veterans day I thank him for putting his life in danger while protecting our country, and let him know how much I love and respect him, and all he has endured since the war. For his war has never truly ended. To this day his memories come flooding back every time he hears of one of his buddies who have passed. They are all old men now, and it is their time. But they have a bond few of us will ever know or understand. Being in the trenches with a soldier; a man who is fighting alongside you with purpose and pride, has always been an honor for my father.

I have heard the good stories of his time in Europe. I know of his women, and the automobiles they commandeered from Frenchmen, (in the name of war), and then used to carouse the country side. Young men, many who had never traveled far from their small US hometowns, were living a life few of us can imagine. Yet the real story; the story of flying bombs and killing of the innocent; of watching his brothers in arms being killed every day was not the story I was told. He holds that close to him, and his dreams reflect the horror of his war and the loss of his wholesomeness.

We are in three wars today. Our young boys and girls are bravely shipped to a desert across the seas, all doing so with pride and honor for our country, and with the hope their work will make a difference back home, and in the lives of those they are there to protect. I am heartbroken daily, when I see family after family receiving their children home in a box draped with our flag. The very flag they have given their young lives for. Yet these wars are not anything similar to previous wars fought by our soldiers. We are at war with people who do not honor human life. We are fighting to teach tribesmen what democracy looks like, hoping they will want to end their own thousand year wars. They don’t want to end them. It is in the fiber of their DNA to fight. It matters little whether they win, because “winning” would put an end to this travesty, and they would have to compromise with their forever enemy. Now we are caught up in the sickness of this battle. We cannot give them enough money; teach their children and women to seek justice; turn them towards a life of structure and peace, if they are intent on living in a world of anger and destruction.

Stop this endless flood of human losses and family devastations.  Enough of our young innocent children have been murdered, and those who come home are forever broken. Generations yet to be born will be affected by these tragedies and we have nothing more to give.

Our young people are in a battle with an enemy of no conscience, and for that reason alone… bring them home.

In honor of my father; John G Bathe, 1922-present, and my nephew, Frank Bryant Jr., born in the USA, died Kabul Afghanistan, April 27, 2011

‎"Square your shoulders to the world, be not the kind to quit; It's not the load that weighs you down but the way you carry it." ~~ Unknown