Four Score and Seven Years Ago...

Christmas night. Finally home after a day of feasting on homemade raviolis and meatballs, much laughter, and way too many gifts. The city is empty and quiet. Husband off playing Left for Dead. Son dreaming of his new train set. So I clear a swath of torn rapping paper to sit in the cold leather chair by the pine with its gumdrop lights and new hedge ornaments (one for father, one for son), and finally get to finish Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief by James M. McPherson.

Great read. McPherson focuses on Lincoln’s presidency, specifically investigating Lincoln’s journey from a man with no military experience and how he becomes a great military and inspirational leader as a result of the Civil War.

I particularly found interesting the moral, political and strategic gumbo that is the issue of slavery. We are taught, in high school, that the sole reason for the Civil War was slavery. This is not altogether true, although slavery had been a thorn in America’s big toe since before the Revolution.

At the start of the Civil War, Lincoln’s only goal was to maintain the Union. If ending slavery would preserve the nation, he’d do that, but if keeping slavery would save the States, then he’d keep the institution, regardless of his personal beliefs. As he grows in his role as Commander in Chief, his political/moral/strategic management of the war changes. Midway through the campaign, emancipation becomes a reason for continuing war and by the fourth year, the permanent liberation of slaves is a requirement for peace, which Lincoln will not sacrifice, even if the decision ruins him. Honor and morality guide him.

The book is not a light read, but the last third reads like any good thriller despite that the reader already knows how it all ends (one hopes so, anyway). As I read the epilogue, which begins with Lincoln’s murder, I even got a bit teary that the world lost such a leader and I wonder, as many have, what this country would be like today had Lincoln lived to lead in peacetime.

New Favorite Author: Laurie Halse Anderson (www.writerlady.com).

Remember Pearl Harbor

This little blog o’mine tends to the light and fluffy, despite the fact that I take my frivolity seriously. After all, I rarely venture outside my world of music, books, romance, and um, potty training. Today, however, I emerge from a bed in which I got very little sleep because I watched Body of War yesterday evening and grew angrier and angrier until the bedside alarm blared. So today I go from Mad (as in slightly off-kilter) Hen to Mad (as in furious) Hen.

Body of War is a documentary that follows the life of one American veteran, Tomas Young, after his return from Iraq. He joined after 9/11 to fight terrorists hiding in Afghanistan but was instead sent to Iraq where he was shot and paralyzed almost immediately. His story is peppered with footage from the 2002 Senate hearings to decide whether or not to give the President authority to go to war.

A part of me hopes that in October 2002, President Bush was a victim of lies, that he was duped like the rest of us. His war-mongering would not be excusable, as stupidity isn’t an excuse for anyone, especially the leader of the free world, but it comforts me more than believing he willingly lied to start a war that has killed millions of Iraqi civilians and has left thousands of our American soldiers dead or maimed, and the ruined return home to substandard care.

I’m not a leftist. Nor am I right-ring. I don’t get people who only listen to liberal media, just as I don’t get people who only listen to Fox News and Jay Severin. One-sided news reporting only results in more of that “I’m right and you are wrong” egotistical behavior that gets us far from Truth. Both sides have valid points and sometimes one side is more accurate than the other, but real truth is somewhere in between.

The Senate majority used the arguments that Saddam was evil, that Iraq was singularly harboring terrorists, and that Saddam was growing an arsenal of weapons to vote to authorize the President to start a war. They rushed into the decision, feeding the America visions of an Apocalypse if we didn’t choose to invade a country that did not invade us. And then the President justified that war in Jesus’s name. Do I need to point out the obvious correlation here?

I believe the truth here is that Iraq had little to do with 9/11. Reasons...Saddam? Definitely needed to go away. But he could have been taken out by a sniper. Why torture the very people he tortured? Weapons of mass destruction? Even Bush admits there were none. Harboring terrorists? No doubt. But every single country in this world is harboring terrorists, including America.

Tomas Young was ready and willing to fight terrorists because they attacked us and our home needed defending. However, he began to question why he was sent to Iraq, where he was surrounded by women and children. Why was he invading a country that did not invade us?

And why, after following the President's orders, did he return, wounded, left to substandard care at Walter Reed, to be already forgotten by that same President, like so many veterans before him?

I was pushed over the edge into full outrage when the documentary arrived at the 2005 White House Correspondents Dinner where President Bush spoofed his claim that Iraq harbored weapons of mass destruction (“Where are those weapons? They must be here somewhere…” he mutters as he peers under a tablecloth.) This self-deprecation parody gets many a cheer from his bejeweled audience in between sips of champagne and nibbles of delicacies, but when the camera cuts to Tomas Young, body broken, watching from home, when the camera pans over the legions of mothers who have lost their sons and daughters to this war, if the viewer of this documentary does not feel absolute disgust in our politicians and in ourselves for not seeing through the garbage these senators and representatives spouted, then there is something morally wrong with the viewer.

The shining light through this documentary was Senator Robert Byrd, whom I believe was once a Grand Master in the Klan, itself a terrorist organization. Like any wel-crafted character in literature, Senator Byrd turned to Light, denounced his Dark past, and now fights for truth, justice, and the American way. Right-wingers will call him a hypocrite, no doubt, but this is a man who on the Senate floor, implores all Americans to stand up and speak out against invading a country that did not attack us and giving power to kill to a single man when his reasons for killing aren't all that clear.

Too late. But not too late to prevent it again. Every American should re-read the words of our Founding Fathers. Every American should see this documentary. It is hard to watch, partly because Tomas Young is laid bare, body and soul, partly because it is sometimes hard to see past personalities and egos to listen to the story being told, but mostly because of the realization that politicians control the world – and we let them.

I suspect Rush Limbaugh and his ilk will mock this work, calling it “Body of Lies,” left-wing propaganda and unfortunately, most of his followers will agree without even bothering to check it out for themselves. This is unfortunate. I believe that all sides need to be considered before choosing to follow a politician, whether that leader is a Bush or an Obama. Many believe not supporting one’s President is unpatriotic. I disagree. If one follows anyone blindly, without one questioning what that leader spouts, whether that leader is a politician, celebrity, or your priest, then one is going against every principle upon which this country was founded. And that is unpatriotic.

And back to the Fluffernutter…

On The Big Screen: Just saw Let the Right One In, a vampire flick without, thankfully, none of the romantic overtones that seem to glut every vampire tale in modern popular fiction. The movie is sad, mostly, and disturbing, but it has moments of humor, joy, horror, and I found myself inwardly cheering at the end where the bullies get what they deserve. In essence, though, this is less of a vampire tale than it is a story about the intricacies of human relationships and what draws people together.

In this case two very lonely beings find each other. At the point in time, it is clear that the two love each other, but one wonders if it is a healthy love, one that will bring out the best in each other, or an enabling co-dependency where he enables her to reenact the past 300 years over and over again and where she feeds his serial killer obsession. All in all, the movie is a little long, the story tragic, but worth a viewing.

On the Nightstand: Sarah Dessen's The Truth About Forever. This woman can write.

On the iPod: The Ramones “Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World" and "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg."