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Monday, June 9, 2008

Why does my head hurt


I stopped using my IPod and started walking with naked ears. Different levels of chirps, peeps and whistles  sounded  through the trees as birds took flight in search of their morning breakfast.  “Wow, where did those bird calls come from?” Then I realized that I didn’t have the plugs in my ears. The birds had been there every morning. I even noticed the deep orange that rimed the back of the clouds as the sun began to rise.  I glanced side to side and up to the clouds as my interest was drawn out and not to what was being said in my ears. 


Max and I forged our way passing the mango trees, bird of paradise, bananas and plumerias in front and behind fences.  Then I noticed a flag perched in front of a house. It was red stripes with blue stars and had a big yellow ribbon over all. 


Ah someone must have a loved one in Iraq I thought.  That’s a nice way of displaying it, thinking back to the movie of the “Five Sullivan’s” and the five stars the parents hung in their window to show their losses. Though this did not mean the same, it did represent someone fighting in a war Zone. 


I’d been through the Viet Nam era, and would pass through Ft. DuRussy in Waikiki. Young wives would be in line with their husbands holding them and some would be crying. The soldiers were leaving the islands having just finished their R&R, retuning to Vietnam. It never ceased to make me cry each time I would see this. That bloody war, I hated it. Not only were they heading back to a place many of them would never return from, they had barely any support from their fellow countrymen as they carried out their duty. 


The flag flying freely in front of that house would never have happened in the 60’s.  I think that Bush has put a different spin on supporting the troops. We are encouraged to stand behind them, send them messages and thank them at all times. And I do. I do feel a debt of gratitude in that they are following orders and putting themselves in harms way. 


But I don’t support the war!


And that is what I thought about as I passed that home. How would someone know the difference if I put a flag out in front of my house? Wouldn’t they automatically think I support what is going on in Iraq?  And to that end, how many people were counted as supporters because they wrote, e-mailed or in some other way tried to display a kindness because these soldiers were doing what they had to do.


Then to hear speeches about how so many Americans were behind the troops and the war, made me wonder, how true was that? I believe that we learned from Viet Nam. Today we want our service people to know that we appreciate them but the vast majority of people I talk to do not support the war even though they support the troops. 


Ah, but I am just a gal on the street albeit if you walk long enough my street will connect to Waikiki. I think that I am taking my walks to seriously. The drawer in my head is coming open with stress.  My brain is leaking out. I think I will put my IPod back on. 

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Do you want to know about Hawaii from a locals point of view? Where do we like to go? What things do we like to see. This blog is about seeing Hawaii without being trapped. This is a journal about Good eats, Hawaiian events, and looking at the islands through the eyes of someone who has lived here for more then forty years.

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