Bittersweet Symphony
2004-04-09 at 2:40 p.m.
Old friends
I've been spending the week with friends from high school. Sometimes I wish that I hadn't been Mormon in high school, but I know that my friends and I wouldn't have been friends at all, or not very good ones, if I wasn't. I'm hurt that I'm not as important to my friends as they are to me. I think part of it, even if they don't admit it, is my non-mormon status. My best friend's (from high school) parents didn't want me to go to the airport to see him when he came home from his mission. And he didn't stand up to them. That... hurt.We read a lot of old notes. I'm surprised by how coherent and non-crazy I was (most of the time). I don't remember that being the case. Maybe I had more fun in high school than I thought. Or maybe I'm still incoherent and crazy.
I was listening to NPR today and they said that the military was allowing women, children, and old men to leave Fallujah, but no men of military age.Can you imagine having to leave your husband or your son or your brother because of his age? 280 Iraqis have already died in the last couple of days. I don't know how guilty or innocent the dead are. How can we even say? I know what the Arab culture is like, and I don't think we should blame them for wanting to stand up to their opressors. When has the West been their friend? Never (except for Kuwait, maybe). Can you blame them for not trusting and for being angry? Ah, what a mess. I don't have any idea what to do now. The military, the Iraqi civilians, they're all just pawns in a big political game. It's sick.
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