Dead at 21

It's a week until we mark September 11--the day the world changed forever.

As many young men and women have died in George Bush's private little war as died on the day he and his cronies have used as an excuse to further their own personal gains.

And now, I have a connection to one of those young men.

I was reading the Washington Post and saw an obituary of a local soldier killed in Aghanistan. I saw that he was a kid from the town where I have lived for 18 years.

I didn't know his name. But the names of his 2 little girls seemed familiar. And the name of his wife. And when I saw his father-in-law's name, the connection was there.

His 21 year old widow is a young woman I've known since she was about the age of her own older child. She and her sister were favorite patrons of mine for years when I worked at another branch of the library.

I lost touch with them, but in June I was eating in a restaurant with my family and the waitress recognized me. She said "You know ME--you named your daughter for me!"

SC is not REALLY named for them, but their names are her names--we were discussing names when I was pregnant and I was teasing them that I would NEVER name a child either "S" or "C" because they were such horrors. And then their mom said that she thought "SC" would be a great name. And it is......

She told me she hadn't gone to college because she had had a baby at 19--and now she had 2 daughter.

She didn't tell me that she was married. She didn't tell me about her husband--that she was working there while he served in Aghanistan. She didn't tell me that he'd done that because it was the only way he could see of giving his daughters a better life.

I read it in his obituary tonight.

We've lost almost 3000 young men and women and the key word is YOUNG.  And not one of them is related to any of the politicians and flag waving "patriots" who got us into this mess.

They're just kids struggling to find a way out of the quagmire those same politicians have dug for the working people of this country. And they're paying for it with their lives.

I can't say anymore.  I'm too damn angry.

And I'm hurting for the sweet little girls of a sweet young woman for whom there isn't a damn thing that I can do...............

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