Dancing with the young Americans

[sovay]

It has been twenty years since 9/11. I was—for just another month—nineteen then. More than half my life has been lived in the shadow, not of that grief, but of the war that battened on it, and I cannot see a way out from under it even now. The war can vote now. Could last year. The dead cast shorter shadows than the myth they were made to feed. And so like everything else in this country, they haunt us and it is not my place to mourn them, except that as part of the community of a nation I should have been asked to, and what I was asked was to wave the flag for a nationalistic fantasy instead. I lost no one to the towers, but I am losing someone to the war, and I do not want to see what happens when it is my family's candles against the next war's photo op.

Comments

[selkie]

To have been only twenty, and watch everything that was stripped away for no reason, and now to be forty, having watched what the jingoism and fear-mongering has twisted into down the years -- it does get grim trying to count the cost. I talked to a Marine in Kabul who hadn't been born yet when all this started. A Marine who could be our kid. She seemed not to have any illusions about patriotism, not that I heard in her voice. "So you work for, like, a church? ...Do you pray?"

*hugs* The loss is never, not to quote CCR at a time like this, the senator's son. It's the kid down the block. It sucks, it fucking sucks and I am sorry.

[sovay]

To have been only twenty, and watch everything that was stripped away for no reason, and now to be forty, having watched what the jingoism and fear-mongering has twisted into down the years -- it does get grim trying to count the cost.

I know it didn't start with W, but he has still never held the weight of his share, and he never will, and it should have buried all of them.

The loss is never, not to quote CCR at a time like this, the senator's son. It's the kid down the block. It sucks, it fucking sucks and I am sorry.

*hugs*

[heron61]

Blessings to you and yours - it's scary what our nation has become. Here's my 2nd ever lj post that I made 2 weeks after 9/11, I sincerely wish I'd been wrong. Amidst all the other sadness about what the US has become, I'm especially sad about the people 15+ years younger than you who have no memories of what the US was like before it became the land of xenophobia and endless war.

[troisoiseaux]

Wow. This post is extremely striking to read twenty years and oh god so many Unprecedented Times later. One thing that really sticks out to me is the line about how we'll soon have an "Office of Homeland Security"— as one of the 15+ years younger, I was in college before I discovered that DHS was a recent invention.

[genarti]

Oh man, that post.

Thank you for linking it. It's eerie to read now, and yet I remember being 19 and feeling exactly the same way, looking at the oncoming tidal wave of war and Homeland Security and jingoism -- except that I had a younger perspective on it. I remember feeling this awful churning mixture of hope (surely we'll course correct? surely people can't actually follow through on doing this, surely someone somewhere will stop this? we're doing protests, we're doing vigils, we're calling our representatives, surely this will end up too unpopular to follow through with?) and cynicism (Bush doesn't care, Cheney doesn't care, they're going to send us to war against Afghanistan who had nothing to do with this, we've bombed so many people and as soon as it comes home to roost people are lashing out, greed and cruelty are driving the bus). I really, really wanted my hope to be the one that was correct, though.

[sovay]

I really, really wanted my hope to be the one that was correct, though.

I remember hoping, too. The first election I could vote in was 2000. And W wanted his war. It was a great introduction to being young and changing the world.

[minoanmiss]

That's some prophetic wisdom there.

[sovay]

Here's my 2nd ever lj post that I made 2 weeks after 9/11, I sincerely wish I'd been wrong.

Cassandra is not a consolation prize.

*hugs*

(I thought of Nightwatch, too.)

[troisoiseaux]

*hugs*

[sovay]

*hugs*

*hugs*

[isis]

This is beautiful and reflects my own thoughts.

[sovay]

This is beautiful and reflects my own thoughts.

Thank you.

[genarti]

<333333333

Beautifully said. Yeah. Yeah.

[sovay]

Beautifully said. Yeah. Yeah.

*hugs*

[minoanmiss]

Yes, this. So much this.

[sovay]

Yes, this. So much this.

*hugs*

[minoanmiss]

hugs you a lot back

[gwynnega]

Yes. I remember protesting the beginning of the war in Afghanistan and then the beginning of the war in Iraq. It's exhausting and dispiriting to think of everything that has happened since.

[sovay]

It's exhausting and dispiriting to think of everything that has happened since.

And it was not inevitable. History is not an impersonal force like gravity or oxidation; people make it happen. So many things since then did not have to happen.

[aurumcalendula]

This. *hugs*

[sovay]

*hugs*

*hugs*

[asakiyume]

I'm so sorry you're losing someone to the war--in whatever sense you mean that

[choco_frosh]

This.
Also, hugs.

[sovay]

Also, hugs.

*hugs*

[sovay]

I'm so sorry you're losing someone to the war--in whatever sense you mean that

Wes. Who isn't dumb at all, but he is a kid, and he should be in our family for decades, and short of the miracles none of us believe in, he won't be.

[asakiyume]

I'm so sorry. I imagine him spending time with his son in his treehouse... I hope the months and days left to him are good ones, and I hope things change around burn pits :(