I had to look details up on Wikipedia, and I'm having trouble trusting my own memory now. But I'll press on with what I had planned for tonight.
In high school, I only had a vague grasp of world events and US foreign policy. I knew the absolute basics of the Vietnam War, but had other interests, as teenagers often do, and just assumed that since that war was over, that our country would be at peace forever, since the only other option was mutual nuclear annihilation with the Soviets, and who would want that? I have this memory of being at a seminar in my freshman year dorm at CU, and the professor turned on a television, to show news reports of a US military action, and it freaked me out. (Here's where I had to google: I thought it was the invasion of Grenada, but that was years earlier, and Wikipedia suggests it might have been actions in Libya. Memory is a funny thing.) I was just sure this announcement of missiles firing or whatever was the end of the world. How could anyone actually choose to go to war, or even just perform a warlike short action? I felt lost. I was utterly terrified, after a decade of believing we were done with war forever. Ah, the naiveté of youth.
My children had the opposite childhood. I was pregnant during Operation Desert Storm. Their father joined the military right before they started school, and deployed to somewhere over there (Saudi? Kuwait?) at least once early on. And they were in gradeschool on 9/11. They have not known this country at peace since. I cannot fathom how the teens and 20-somethings of this country perceive it.
I have a lot of mixed emotions about the last day of the war in Afghanistan today. Mostly, I'm glad it is over. Yes, nearly everyone I knew who went to it and/or Iraq came back safely. Some were seriously injured. As far as I know, the only deaths that brushed my sphere were friends of friends. When the airlift first started, I was quite nervous about it. It was like watching a horror movie, when you're home, sitting on your couch, screaming "jump in the truck and drive away now!" I felt helpless and panicked, wanting them to scoop out anyone who wanted to go immediately, and sort out the paperwork in a different country. All I could think about was escape. I'm frightened for the people who remain, even those who chose to. I'm angry about how long we stayed, how much money was spent, in whom we placed our trust, and how poorly it was all managed. Could the exit have gone better? Maybe? There is an awful lot I don't understand about war, ranging from why to start one to how to end one.
All told, I'm relieved it's over and I'm impressed as hell that they managed to get out over 120,000 people. I'm pleased that my governor was one of the first few to write and declare our state open to refugees. Beyond that, I need time to mull it over. Twenty years was a whole lot. With distance, we ought to be able to be objective about it.
For tonight, I'm going to snuggle with my silly dog, and hope that this first night without a surgical drain in my side is more comfortable than the last nine were.
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