Random Thoughts

Written by: Thomas Janowski on Mar 1, 2009 7:59 AM EST

I'm loving digital TV.  While using a digital converter resulted in losing my Buffalo, NY and Toronto channels, I gained extra PBS channels and those are awesome.  I now watch PBS 95% of the time. 

Two recent shows stand out in my mind, if only for some much needed perspective.  I just saw an episode of Scientific American Frontiers with Alan Alda.  The show was about 5 years old and it was about the emerging alternative fuels for the auto industry.  When Alan asked a GM executive why GM wasn't pushing harder or working faster to get hybrids or hydrogen fuel cells to market, the executive said it was all about profits.  The GM exec said that stockholders demanded profits and alt fuel vehicles could not compete with profitable SUVs.  This was just 5 years ago.  Where did all the profits go?  Has GM learned a lesson about looking to the future and planning for disasters, like the steep rise in gasoline prices?

Last night I watched Frontline about American soldiers returning from Iraq.  The show dealt with things such as post traumatic stress disorder.  I think the show really should have been dealing with patriotic-induced homefront denial.  Parents interviewed for this episode literally had their heads in the sand.  First, they were overwhelmed by their sense of pride that their sons signed up to go to Iraq.  This pride overwhelmed any sense of fear that families might have had.  Upon returning home, one mother commented that the crowd of 200 men, women and children waving tiny American flags was just what her son needed to see.  Really? Flag waving fixes everything? 

Another mother commented that she was amazed that there wasn't as much as a scratch on her son.  For that she was relieved.  Yet, there is the issue of blindness.  Parents seemed to be totally blind to the thought that their sons came home so totally damaged that they allowed themselves the luxury of believing the heavy drinking, violent tempers, mood swings and depression were to be expected and that the military had pre-screened everyone and those needing help were getting help. 

Unfortunately, it appears the general thinking is that going to war creates instant heros, when, in fact, war only creates damaged people...sometimes damaged beyond repair.  When their sons committed suicide, parents kept saying they never saw it coming.  Military buddies of those who took their own lives were surprised as well.  Why does this surprise anyone?  Have most Americans shut down their imaginations so they cannot think of the horrors of war?  I certainly believe parents lie awake at night hoping and praying their sons and daughters are not physically injured or killed.  But do these same parents put themselves in their children's boots?  Do they understand their children have been ordered to kill people.  Do they think about the death that surrounds all soldiers and do they wonder how this might damage someone?

Personally, I have thought about war--alot.  I will admit to knowing I could probably use great force to protect my family from a clear and present danger.  But what I cannot comprehend is going off to a foreign country and being ordered to shoot and kill people--strangers in a strange country.  Did the people who should be killed actually do anything?  In war, I guess one does not stop to think.....

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