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"There is no way that a great power can run tanks into a smaller, weaker country and expect anything but what we have in Iraq"Here, Traveling Soldier prints a response to an article in a local paper about parents trying to hide their children from the pictures of Abu Ghraib. Dear Editor, I read your 5/18 article about the frantic efforts of local parents to shield their children from the gruesome images on the evening news with a great deal of sadness-and alarm. The experts, it seems, think it's best to "protect" children by keeping them ignorant. Ignorance protects no one. I grew up in the shadow of World War II, and in the blue white glow of the ever-on television set. My family watched TV, and we especially watched the evening news. Every night, over dinner, Walter Cronkite. What I saw then, as a five year old, remains with me to this day. It was the Hungarian revolt of 1956. Guys in street clothes lurking in doorways, with pistols and rifles and Molotov-cocktails taking on Russian tanks. I wasn't frightened, I was thrilled. Wow, who are these really brave people? My dad told me they were Hungarians; he explained why they were fighting the Russians. We had a map pinned to the wall of the kitchen, and I learned a little geography. This is Hungary, this is Budapest - miles and oceans away from me, but also the homeland of several of the families on our street. The images were gruesome. I remember a truck piled high with wounded insurgents flying a makeshift flag - a bedsheet with a Red Cross marked out in the blood of the wounded. I also remember the "good-guy" insurgents lynching a Communist official in a public square. My dad said that, in war, even good people can do terrible things. So, was I traumatized? No, I was educated. I learned some geography, some history, and I learned, deeply and forever, that there is no way that some great power can run tanks into some smaller, weaker country and expect anything but what we have now in Iraq. Their kids will try to kill ours. Our kids will try to kill theirs. Our kids may ¡"win," as the Russians did in Hungary. Tanks and planes and superior firepower may win the war, but the hearts and minds will always be with the skinny kid in the doorway, waiting his chance for a shot at that tank. That's not trauma. That's the truth. Sincerely yours, Anna Bradley Page 13--> |
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