Here is my big issue with what happens when both sides of the aisle wrap the flag around the conflict in Iraq: people like Terry Lisk get forgotten. It becomes a broad and abstract idea that none of us really know anything about. It turns into a general overarching grand concept of truth, ideals and virtue. It becomes a black and white argument with no middle ground while the truth of the matter is that the truth itself is the thing that lies in the gulf between the two.
Who was Terry Lisk? Who was Cpl. Jason W. Morrow? Who was Paul King? (who, by the way, died at 23.) Who was Ryan McCurdy or Chris Wagener? Or the two thousand five hundred other Americans who have died over there? Why aren’t we forced to memorize each soldier’s story?
Our media views Sgt. Lisk as a number closer to the 3,000 mark. The Republicans say that since Sgt. Lisk died, we can’t stop fighting. The Democrats say that since Sgt. Lisk died, we must stop fighting. But no one tells me about who Terry was. Why was he there? Why did he fight? What did he believe in? Did he like comics? Was he like me? Would he and I have been friends? He was 26 years old…why wasn’t he out drinking with his friends and enjoying the hot summer evening on Wednesday, June 28th?
I’m not anti-war. I believe in a just war and I believe in a necessary war and I believe that they are not always the same thing. I’m a pragmatic realist and I know that there are times that this nation must send her sons into battle and that some of those sons will die in foreign lands. I do believe that the world changed after September the 11th and that a new perspective was required.
But I don’t believe in lower taxes while these men die abroad. I don’t believe that each and every coffin that comes back from Iraq shouldn’t be shown to the entire world and we, as Americans, shouldn’t be forced to recognize what this battle costs us.
Lincoln said that there is little left for us to consecrate relative to those who have already given their last full measure of devotion. He said that based on the assumption that we are already dedicated and sacrificing for the cause…we haven’t sacrificed or dedicated ourselves to anything yet. That’s my issue with the war. No war, no battle can be true and honest and real unless we know and remember Sgt. Lisk as opposed to a loose term like the “War on Terror”. We’re better than that…at least we should be.