Antipode

Seen on the newsstand as I walked into a drugstore. Then I realized that the piped in music was the chorus to "Jeremiah was a bullfrog." The lyrics I heard ("joy to the world, all the boys and girls, singin' joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me) as I read the headline:

Soldier from Sharon Killed in Baghdad Blast

and looked at the photo of a bright young man cut down before he began a half a world away.

I've never understood this war and I've looked at it from many sides now. But the one thing that makes my bones angry, that leaves me with the taste of mara in my mouth is that there are not enough bumperstickers in the world to support our troops. It is not support when their bodies come home in secrecy. It is not support when we cannot get a proper accounting of who has been injured, who has died, and who will never be the same again.

Magnets are cheap. Grieving is hard. But that's one way to support our troops and their families. I wonder when we'll get around to doing that? Or will we just keep whistling "joy to the world" in the dark?