Remember Me?
This is a video supposedly written and produced by 15 year old Lizzie Palmer (whoever she is) that is receiving millions of hits on YouTube.com. It was sent to me by a close family member who remembers my service in Viet Nam and that I wholeheartedly support our troops. I'm still on the fence as to the reasons we are where we are but wherever our troops go I think of them daily. Any so-called cause should be secondary to their well-being and survival.
This video will hit you where it hurts emotionally and will make you think about things you would rather not think about like death and debilitating injuries but whoever produced it deserves a lot of credit. If it was done by Lizzie Palmer I would like to think she is the whiz-kid daughter of a Marine who understands and appreciates first-hand what her Father or Mother has chosen to do for their country. It is obviously produced out of love but I think fear as well, fear that someday her Mom/Dad may not come home and further motivated by the day-to-day apprehension that a military family goes through when their loved ones are serving overseas in defense of their country. She wants us, the people safe at home, to pay attention and I think she has accomplished this.
Lizzie may have done this out of frustration while watching the world go by "back in the World" as we used to say. When we are being shot at and our buddies are dying it's sometimes hard to understand how anyone could be interested in the Super Bowl, the Mall, Basketball Playoffs or anything else that seems to fly in the face of our situation. I remember thinking during my tour in Viet Nam, do they even care back home? I came to realize that these feelings arose out of the trauma of being scared witless 24/7 for over a year and that life must go on. A free life back home and all that entails are the very things that we are fighting to protect. A Marine in combat eventually gets past this by feeling a sense of satisfaction in protecting the innocent and misguided that are back home doing whatever they do.
This becomes a two-edged sword for non-military families (the people that Lizzie comes in contact with at school or wherever)because it deprives them of the true understanding and correlation of: Mom/Dad at risk = a whole new dynamic in daily life. They tend to follow the political wind without the distraction of worrying about a loved one. Their concerns then become: how much is this war costing us?, why are we there?, can't our President get this thing together and either end it or get the hell out?, etc, etc. You can draw a comparison to Viet Nam if you want, and in many ways I sure do. The big difference today is that 911 was an attack directly against this country and anything that our military leaders think they must do to prevent further attacks must be done. Viet Nam was a million miles away and no one really cared about the mantra: "stop the flow of communism and prevent the domino effect."
Military families are either very close or they become completely dysfunctional due to Mom or Dad being away during the critical years of a child's development. Those families that are close are held together by loving, caring parents who are involved in their child's lives no matter if serving in a foreign land where people are trying to kill them and even the so-called "friendlies" can't be trusted. People like Lizzie have their heads on straight and embrace their cause, the cause of supporting our men and women in the military.
Expect to see more relevent videos on this site.
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