Political Games - Where the fuck’s the reset button?

This morning the local teenybopper station did something pretty nice: They invited family members of veterans to call in and leave messages for their loved ones serving overseas. Young men told their brothers, in voices high and frightened, to kick some ass. Young women, including one who sounded about 12 but said she was 20 and six months pregnant, told their fiancees and boyfriends and husbands and fathers to come home, that they need you here, please come home safe. And moms, and God this was hard to hear, moms told their sons and daughters they missed them. The airhead hosts were crying and trying not to let on that they were. One of them said, “I don’t know anybody in the military, but all of you do. We should think about them more often.”

Tomorrow, they’ll go back to Ashlee Simpson and Britney Spears, no doubt. We have the collective attention span of gnats in this country, and nothing demonstrates that more than our need to designate days to honor veterans, days to honor those who truly do speak about their work in terms of service. We shouldn’t need a day for it, but if a day is what it takes, then let’s take a day, today.

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