Remmick-Hubert Special Page - Lodi Union High School, Class of 1960-Newsletter
Vol.10: 29 May 2003
How did the War in Iraq affect me personally? Well, first of all, one of my elder son's good friends, who is a lawyer, and in the Reserves, was called to duty and ended up in Iraq. So, as I watched the news I was afraid that I'd see that young face as a victim of the war. And, then I'd think about his lovely wife and children, who might not have a father when all of this is done. When Jake,the young man we know, wrote he voiced that it was difficult for those over there to understand the protests at home. Jake understood the SF protest since he grew up here but not the others. "If people could only see what Suddam has done to these people here.... People at home would understand," he wrote. What a terrible burden to place on these boys to make them think they don't have all of us supporting them. Even more terrible, I think, would be for just one of them to die thinking they were/are dying without reason. As for myself, I voiced strong opinions that were pro war. I thought it was time we finished what we started under Pres. Bush I but didn't finish because we had been so honorable and stopped the war once we had freed Kuwait. just as we had promised. It was long over due because too many lives, like the Kurds, had died thinking we were going to help them and we failed to do as we had, also, promised. I spoke my opinions loud and clearly on several world wide web servers, I was bombarded with anti-war e-mail.
This brought me back in time to when I was a huge supporter of anti-communism during the Vietnam War. I have never change my mind about being anti-communist and only grew disappointed that we hadn't gone into that war to win, and, had not supported our men there, or, when we didn't give them heroes welcomes when they returned home.
From what I understand, some of my comments have been placed on a German website and my words are being discussed even, now.
Just a month earlier, Garry and I had talked about going to France for our next vacation but he nor I have said we wanted to go after the French leaders did to the USA in the United Nations...... Last evening, I asked my younger son to pass me some French fries. He said he'd pass Freedom fries and that the word French had been stricken by his age group from their vocabulary. So, French fries is Freedom fries, French bread is Freedom bread and this also goes for Freedom toast, beans, etc. etc. etc..
Like the rest of the Americans [USA citizens] I watched the television reports. I found myself watching real early in the morning because the news from the east wasn't so disjointed as it became later in the day by all the talk shows that followed into the prime hours.
I liked the fellow who had built the special camera station on the military vehicle and we with him viewed the road to Baghdad. As the reporter hoped, he became a kind of friend of the family, so, when he died of a blood clot, I felt deeply sadden by his lost. Then there was the Dodo G. Riveria drawing in the sand the plans of our troop advancement. How dumb can some of these reporters be?! The old excited, weary, warrior and Ret. Col. Oliver North showed us the front as he was air lifted by helicopter into areas of battle... He was the first one I heard saying he and our troops were in Baghdad. The reports about the absents of "weapons of mass destructions" by CNN and the "liberal press" was / is aggravating. After the United Nations gave "Suddumb" [Suddam] weeks to have time to hide all his weapons in places no one will ever find or over borders of other countries, who really thought we'd find "weapons of mass destruction" just sitting there waiting to be found? When I saw the officer hand up the American flag to soldier to drape over the statue of "Suddumb's" face, I thought, "OH DEAR", the German and French press are going to splash this all over their television sets and newspapers." I don't think the foreign press showed the flag being replaced by the Iraq flag nor did they see the statue's head being drug around with the Iraq men cheering, "USA, USA!".
There was the night at a birthday party, I found myself face to face with anti-war people. I haven't had such a serious discussion since I don't know when..... Much to my regret, they didn't hear what I had to say. I tried to listen to them them before speaking..... and answer their questions. But they didn't want to hear what I had to say. They didn't want to hear my knowledge about Iraq. Their words always returned to these, "You just don't seem to understand, we're there for the oil....."
My e-mail in box continued to be flooded with anti-war information by people who thought they could send me literature that would make me see their view was the correct view..... I can't believe some of the news articles and facts these people sent me. Some nun wrote about Bush's earlier problems with alcohol which proves he must be some drunken greedy evil war monger after oil...... Then, there were the messages from our classmate Michael Johns who seemed to have been linked to all the pro-American activities. With some of his messages came the humor which help people like myself wade through all the heavy serious stuff war creates around us here at home while our boys are fighting for the freedom of another country filled with strangers. I'm still laughing over the one photo with...... Well, it doesn't matter which one it was. For me, I just appreciated the humor during a very serious time.... Thanks, again, Mike.
So the days which followed were filled with news of war..... Meanwhile, there were our lives to live such as enjoying our grandchildren .... But this didn't mean our minds were having "free times" from the war. My older grandchild, a girl who is eleven, asked me about the war. I explained how evil Suddam was and that the people in Iraq had not been able to protect themselves and we had sent our soldiers to free the people in Iraq and hope to help them build a democracy where it didn't matter a persons religion, color or political beliefs, like here in the USA, which protects people like the Dixie Chicks, or "Hanoi"Jane Fondas... [She had no idea who Fonda was, of course.] Her comment was, "It's sad that people have to hurt other people." I nodded and as I returned my attention to the road as I drove her to school I added, "It is sad that people hurt other people. Unfortunately, there are people out in the world who hurt other people. We, as adults, have to make sure done of them hurt you, your friends, or all the other innocent children of this world." An impossible task which will never be accomplished, it's sad to say. But for, now, we are trying to stop a very evil man, Suddam, from hurting any more of the children of Iraq or the Terrorist from bombing us here in the USA.
That was just a short time ago, now, the news is drowning us with the news of a pregnant woman's murder in Modesto. For whatever reason, we, now, know the unborn fetus had a name of Connor.....
These days, my television rarely has on the channels like CNN, and, I'm not sure what's happening today in Iraq accept the bites and pieces I get when I do stop for a moment between the Giants Baseball games and an old movie..... Sometimes I click the channel changer pass the old movie to the channel that has animal interests... One of the shows have people rescuing animals... I give a sigh.... Sometimes we here in the USA are more interested in rescuing a cat out of a pipe than the child being raped by a priest... . But, I suppose, that's another subject for another time.
Judy A. Remmick-Hubert
Newsletter - Vol. 10: 22 May
2003
Index Page: Senior Year
Index Page: Class of 1960