Questions
This was prompted by reading a post at This Is Not A Love Story (home of stories to take your breath away):
A photo stolen from the Sydney Morning Herald, Monday 08 November 2004 p.1:
In God we trust... US Marines of the 1st Division line up for prayer at their base outside Falluja. Thousands of marines, many inexperienced, are gearing up for an imminent attack on the rebel-held city.
Photo: AP/Anja Niedringhaus.
On the front page of a major Australian newspaper, young men lined up like tombstones, preparing themselves to face death and killing. Whatever your views about the war, pictured here are real people, facing real death, the end of life as they knew it. Regardless of their mission (yes, they’re going in to kill people) how can you not admire their fortitude in standing there, doing what they perceive to be their duty? And how can you not also wonder what the hell is going on? We as a society still require men to do things like this? Can you imagine two lines of women standing there like that? There’d be outrage. It’d be a disgrace.
It is a disgrace. It has always been a disgrace. We send men off to war in so many ways, and not all of them involve guns and fighting. Why do they put up with it? And why are we women still standing there at their backs, prodding them with bayonets? Something made these men go. Something made their families and friends tell them they should. What was it? Tell me.
“It is a crime how our society forges men to be firm and emotionally indestructible, culturally conditioned and designed with conquest, killing, or dying in mind - but doesn’t acknowledge the price of such strength. We are what we do, as men, not what we feel.”And just to show this is still the case, despite decades of “feminism” (true feminism would be anti-sexism, wouldn’t it? Well, wouldn’t it?) look at this:
A photo stolen from the Sydney Morning Herald, Monday 08 November 2004 p.1:
In God we trust... US Marines of the 1st Division line up for prayer at their base outside Falluja. Thousands of marines, many inexperienced, are gearing up for an imminent attack on the rebel-held city.
Photo: AP/Anja Niedringhaus.
On the front page of a major Australian newspaper, young men lined up like tombstones, preparing themselves to face death and killing. Whatever your views about the war, pictured here are real people, facing real death, the end of life as they knew it. Regardless of their mission (yes, they’re going in to kill people) how can you not admire their fortitude in standing there, doing what they perceive to be their duty? And how can you not also wonder what the hell is going on? We as a society still require men to do things like this? Can you imagine two lines of women standing there like that? There’d be outrage. It’d be a disgrace.
It is a disgrace. It has always been a disgrace. We send men off to war in so many ways, and not all of them involve guns and fighting. Why do they put up with it? And why are we women still standing there at their backs, prodding them with bayonets? Something made these men go. Something made their families and friends tell them they should. What was it? Tell me.
posted by D at 12:25 am
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