Parking space in Chicago is at a premium. On side streets it's not at all uncommon to have to wait while someone who has double parked runs up to a house and knocks on a door. It's just an annoying traffic fact of life in Chicago, but that is also exactly what happened recently when a U.S. marine, on leave from Iraq went to pick up a friend to go to dinner.
A divorce lawyer came up behind the Marines car, saw military stickers on the car, and went ballistic. The lawyer got out of the car, screaming about how arrogant the American military was and how the United States had no business being in Iraq. He then proceeded to take his car keys and scratch the Marines car, causing $2,400 in damage.
Since that time, the lawyer has been the most hated person in Chicago. He's far more hated than the poor guy who caught that ball in Wrigley Field during the World Series. The long and the short of the situation was that the marine acted like a gentleman, called the police, and the lawyer was arrested. The outcome is chronicled in this Chicago Tribune article.
I grew up at the very end of the Vietnam war and I remember being terrified that I would be drafted. I saw the images on the nightly news and I spent most of my time as a kid sure I would never become an adult. I was thirteen when the draft was suspended and I literally breathed a sigh of relief, and I had my first anxiety attack when Reagan reinstated the registration for the draft. Since I passed the draftable age, I've not really given much thought to the military.
But several years ago I did a show where I played a marine. I had rented a costume that looked pretty authentic. I didn't really think too much about it. On the way home the train was crowded and I had to stand in the aisle, holding the uniform in a dry-cleaner's bag.
There was a very small old man sitting in one of the seats. He could have been a hundred years old, and he looked very frail. He pointed to my uniform and then stood up and offered me the seat. He insisted that a military man take his seat. Of course I thanked him and explained that I was just an actor and the uniform on the hangar was just a costume. He eyed me skeptically and only reluctantly resumed his seat.
I think there were one or two other men who saw me with the uniform who commented on it with a degree of respect. I was almost embarrassed to be carrying the uniform, as if I was making a grab at distinction that I had no right to even pretend.
Since that time I've given a little more thought to the people in the military, and since the start of the war I've given a lot of thought to the people in the military. Usually the only stories in the news that can really generate any emotion for me are about crimes against children, but lately I've had to learn to manage my outrage at the way our soldiers are treated. I've never heard of such treatment on a personal level as the story of the marine and the lawyer. But in the news now it is becoming increasingly more common to hear about how our government is mistreating our returning soldiers.
Because we have an all-volunteer military, I do not pity the soldiers in Iraq. For whatever reason those soldiers made the personal choice of a military career. That said, I am outraged at the way our soldiers are being treated by our government. These soldiers have been thrown -- repeatedly -- into an unjust, mismanaged mess. They are risking life and limb in an ideological fight in a country that did not do a single thing against us. The argument that Iraq harbored terrorists may have some validity, but if it does it's an equally valid argument against Saudi Arabia. That's where the 9/11 terrorists came from. That's the country that launched a full PR campaign in the days after 9/11, denying responsibility, and that's the country that is currently holding our economy hostage with historic oil prices.
And that is the country that George W. Bush is currently courting.
There is something horribly wrong in this world when a frail old man offers his seat to a healthy young man merely holding a military uniform, and the commander-in-chief fawns all over the country that sponsored the actual attacks on the United States.
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