I get the Village Voice on line but often, mostly because I'm too busy reading junk, I only read the headlines. I did read this article though and thought I'd share it.
"I don't know a single person who has served in Iraq. I suspect that many who are reading this can say the same thing.
So again, where does Operation Iraqi Freedom sit? It sits on the bus to the outer boroughs, the bus you never have and never will take. It sits in the trim house near the Army base in Georgia, or Massachusetts, or Oregon, not one of the soldiers in Iraq was drafted, after all. It also likely sits next to you, on the subway or in the traffic jam, en route to the shiny glass tower where you both work. But unless you and I make a conscious effort to recognize both the historic significance and the human reality of what is happening in Iraq, it will remain anonymous. This war sits at the edge of the room, a stranger we have no reason, except that it is our duty as its hosts, to approach.
One thousand and ninety-six days ago, I was in Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, as far from America as I then felt like being. When news of the war's beginning hit (almost in real time, thanks to the Internet cafes that ring the town square), the voices of the passersby rose, changed pitch, became angry. Then they settled. I came home three months later, spent the summer on a lake in California, slept through the fall on a couch in Boston, moved to New York, got jobs, got an apartment, wrote. More seasons passed. Seven of my friends got married. Two of my friends broke bones. One of my friends died. The clock ticks and life goes on, but today it needs to be said: Three years is a very long time. "
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