 |
| Pic from wikipedia |
Go there someday. Take your time walking up the hill. Visit General Lee's house. Watch a Changing of the Guard. For me, the whole experience was very moving - prompting feelings of sadness and loss but also surges of pride and reverence.
No doubt the Poles feel similarly about their Tomb.
There are places where, for lack of a better phrase, you just don't be an a**hole. You just don't. Ever. This is one of those places. There is absolutely no room for partisan dickswinging at such a solemn place.
Which is why I'm so PO'd at the reporters following Romney around. Screaming questions about Palestinians? While in Poland? At their Tomb of the Unknown? That is a hundred kinds of wrong. Every once in a while, a person/topic/event comes along and really riles me. I can't mentally afford to get ticked at everything that merits being ticked off about. I try to let most of it roll off my back, but this is one of the exceptions where I just can't shake it off. I'm sick of sacrifice being disrespected and I'm sick of eastern Europe being treated like garbage. We don't need to put these people on a pedestal; we don't need to go Nation Building along the Danube. But can't we at least treat these people with some decency and respect?
I hope to visit Arlington again. I'd love also to visit similar sites in Europe someday. Though I haven't been in a fistfight since elementary school, had I been in Poland yesterday, there would be a reporter in a dental chair today getting his front teeth surgically repaired.
At the very least a few reporters deserved a pie in the face.
ReplyDeleteBut when did we expect reporters to not be a**holes, especially with Republicans?
It was wrong to "interrupt" Barky in the Rose Garden. Remember that big huff-a-puffa?
ReplyDeleteThis was like, totally okay, though.
Ever since sometime in the early 60s when the media quit referring to "us" and "them" (them = Soviet Union, for example), they have flushed themselves into the raw sewage of cynicism and relativism, where NOTHING is sacred, honorable, or of value.
ReplyDeleteLet me know if you need backup.
ReplyDeleteBravo. I've been to Arlington and I've also been to quite a few war memorials in Europe, especially the UK... where EVERY town and village of any size has one, or more. I've also stood in formation at Remembrance Day ceremonies in Ol' Blighty, and the Brits take the day seriously, as they should. This post resonates with me, Inno. Well done.
ReplyDeleteWhat Buck said.
ReplyDelete