Sunday, March 30, 2008

The shoe on the other foot



Walk with me down this street. It’s my street. It’s a cul-de-sac that has sixteen houses on it. Each house was once worth over $300,000. The houses are wood framed, with stucco walls, and red tile roofs. My street is part of a neighborhood which includes several hundred houses, a couple of schools, pools, and tennis courts. It’s a typical middle class neighborhood, much like yours I'm sure.

But today my street is in ruins, the result of three months of constant bombing of this country by the “bad guys.” (BG’s) Today the ground has stopped shaking and the smoke has cleared and we find that our once great country is now being occupied by the BG’s. My part of the state has been bombed heavily because it is on the west coast and houses several major airports, a major seaport, and several military bases. Several military contractors once called this part of the state home.

My neighborhood has no running water, natural gas, or sewage system to speak of. My neighborhood has electricity for 2-4 hours a day, 2-3 days of the week. I have several large holes in my roof from bomb fragments and the retaining wall from the freeway has collapsed into my yard. I dug a cave into the base of the freeway to create a bomb shelter for my family. There is no gasoline to run my cars, so I walk to a nearby shopping center to stand in line for water and food rations. Cell phones, televisions, and the internet are all memories of the past.

My family is in tatters. I no longer have my pension coming in and my wife has no job since the schools were shut down. I’ve had no contact with my two sons in months, as both left to fight in the resistance.

The BG’s have been dropping leaflets in our neighborhood telling us they are here to bring freedom to our country. Armed soldiers patrol the area, searching for those who resist, kicking down doors and taking away people they call terrorists never to be seen again. I fear they will come for me one day, as I have been trying to do my part by going out at night to snipe at their patrols and plant IED’s. I understand we have lost thousands of troops and civilian men, women, and children have been slaughtered in the millions.

I pray each day that the BG’s would just leave and let us run our country the way we see fit. Why do they have to push their form of government on us? Many believe that it’s not our freedom the BG’s are interested in but our natural recourses. Will this planet ever know peace? When is enough, enough?

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