The ultimate price

It’s a sunny early spring day and I am angry as I watch the news. I am sad to see those photos of our kids riding on poorly armored vehicles in war-torn Baghdad. As a friend and neighbor, I am constantly searching those images of young and beautiful faces, looking for signs that a friend’s child is still okay. As a mother, I will support those men and women with my very last breath, understanding that the ultimate sacrifice may be one of my own.

I am, however, completely sickened by the political crap that I must endure time and again as I watch those television images. I want to cry when I listen to “Be all that you can be,” while questions haunt the airwaves as they did in the days of the Vietnam War: “Should we be there? Why are we involved?”

I have never experienced the everyday death and trauma that some must endure in that far away land.

I can’t imagine the daily fear of losing my family to indiscriminate gunfire or meeting a suicide bomber any time I put on my veil to go to Peck’s.

I can only applaud the strength and values of those who, in this day of volunteer military service, have opted to try to make a difference in this war torn world.

A young soldier was recently laid to rest here in Narrowsburg, brought home to a hero’s final resting place. He was surrounded by the people in his life who knew and loved him; honored by those who didn’t know him, yet respected him.

He left this passage of advice to his friends:

“Let every one of your friends know that you love them even if they think that you don’t.”

A simple, fundamental thought (and what a shame that a boy had to die on the other side of the world for us to stop and consider it.) How selfless an act, giving so that others could live.

Here’s a thought. “Mankind is our business.”

Life isn’t about the power-driven responses on Pennsylvania Avenue or a need to control Capitol Hill, it’s about all of us on this planet. Our children are dying while politicians are exchanging blame.

The issue isn’t “was it right or wrong to intervene?” or “should we pull out or stay?” It isn’t Iraq, September 11 or American prestige.

The issue is all of us as a human race, plagued by our different tongues and customs, finding a way to live together here on this one overburdened planet.

This war and every war is the business of all of us… the problem of all of us.

Right now, in Shohola, PA, a little boy is raising an American flag in his schoolyard. His loss of his big sister is all of our loss. Whether we should stay or leave is not important to him. What is important is his job of raising that flag and remembering her courage. I can only honor him and everyone who has sacrificed during this sadness by keeping clear in my mind how really small our world is, and how really brave a thing it is to try to make a difference.

- Diane Butler