(no subject)
Aug. 26th, 2004 02:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
somedaybitchi wear a [POW/MIA bracelet] on my arm. i have since college. the name on my arm is not a relative. not someone i know. not someone who's a friend of a friend, and yet, the name on my arm is one i know as well as i know my own.
[Lt Col David L Hrdlicka. US Air Force.]
he was shot down over Laos on May 18th, 1965. 6 days later, i was one year old.
i turned 40 in May of this year. David still isn't home.
at least 4 or 5 times a year people ask me what the bracelet means. i tell my story and they seem, surprised. they ask why i wear the bracelet if David isn't a relative and my answer is always the same because the purpose of the bracelet is always the same.
i wear it because David hasn't come home. i wear it to remind people that David hasn't come home. i wear it to remind people that thousands of Davids still haven't come home.
stop and try to imagine for just a second what it had to be like for his family, and how much time 40 years of not knowing is.
one POW/MIA, who's name shamefully escapes me, left his wife with, as i recall, 3 children, one of whom was unborn at the time he went MIA. she spoke at SDSU when i was there. one of her sons had recently been ordained a priest. her children's entire lives had gone by without ever knowing their father. i heard several years later that she committed suicide. i don't know if that's actually true or not, but i do know i cannot begin to fathom living in a limbo of that magnitude, and the self-induced guilt that would come with it.
my bracelet spurred this lj entry today after reading [this opinion piece], hosted by the Wall Street Journal. the topic of the piece, is, not surprisingly, the hubub over John Kerry and Vietnam.
read it. i don't believe it's written by a "Bush Supporter". i believe it was written by someone disappointed at a lost opportunity for healing.
i'm not asking anyone to read it because i'm a Republican and it is critical of the Democratic candidate for President. i'm asking people to read it for my own selfish reasons.
read it no matter what side of the political spectrum you're on.
read it because Vietnam is still unfinished business.
read it because David Hrdlicka hasn't come home yet.
we set aside Vietnam, abided by the unspoken truces, because as a nation we needed to. by doing so, we also set aside the soldiers that never came home.
[Lt Col David L Hrdlicka. US Air Force.]
he was shot down over Laos on May 18th, 1965. 6 days later, i was one year old.
i turned 40 in May of this year. David still isn't home.
at least 4 or 5 times a year people ask me what the bracelet means. i tell my story and they seem, surprised. they ask why i wear the bracelet if David isn't a relative and my answer is always the same because the purpose of the bracelet is always the same.
i wear it because David hasn't come home. i wear it to remind people that David hasn't come home. i wear it to remind people that thousands of Davids still haven't come home.
stop and try to imagine for just a second what it had to be like for his family, and how much time 40 years of not knowing is.
one POW/MIA, who's name shamefully escapes me, left his wife with, as i recall, 3 children, one of whom was unborn at the time he went MIA. she spoke at SDSU when i was there. one of her sons had recently been ordained a priest. her children's entire lives had gone by without ever knowing their father. i heard several years later that she committed suicide. i don't know if that's actually true or not, but i do know i cannot begin to fathom living in a limbo of that magnitude, and the self-induced guilt that would come with it.
my bracelet spurred this lj entry today after reading [this opinion piece], hosted by the Wall Street Journal. the topic of the piece, is, not surprisingly, the hubub over John Kerry and Vietnam.
read it. i don't believe it's written by a "Bush Supporter". i believe it was written by someone disappointed at a lost opportunity for healing.
i'm not asking anyone to read it because i'm a Republican and it is critical of the Democratic candidate for President. i'm asking people to read it for my own selfish reasons.
read it no matter what side of the political spectrum you're on.
read it because Vietnam is still unfinished business.
read it because David Hrdlicka hasn't come home yet.
we set aside Vietnam, abided by the unspoken truces, because as a nation we needed to. by doing so, we also set aside the soldiers that never came home.
