Friday, September 4, 2009

#10 Postcard: Sunrise Over Fallujah


Dear Uncle Richie,

We were running from insurgents while in Fallujah. It was pitch black and the light of firing gun barrels lit up the sky. We were saving the children from the Iraqi men. One child was hurt and Jonsey ran to his rescue, I heard Miller call out, “He’s hit! He’s hit!” We carried Jonsey and the blind child to medics. I prayed for Jonsey not to die. The following day news came to me of Jonsey’s death; it hit me that even though he had dreams of going home to his blues club he would jeopardize that for an innocent stranger. It put in perspective just how serious this was, again.

We are all being relocated including me. I will be headed to Germany in a few days all alone to find new friends. Uncle Richie, I understand now why you didn’t talk to me about Vietnam. I think when I have children I won’t tell them about my going to war or what I’ve done here. I will tell them something because I want them to know about war. But are there really enough words to make them understand?

Yours,

Robin


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on marriage

'Will you, um, marry me?' I haven't seen you in weeks! You don't look happy or excited about the prospect of our marriage! You're asking me to give up my - my freedom, my joie de vivre for an institution that fails as often as it succeeds? And why should I marry you anyway? I mean, why do you wanna marry me? Besides some bourgeois desire to fulfill an ideal that society embeds in us from an early age to promote a consumer capitalist agenda?
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