Speakout 4/2

Monday, April 2, 2007

This is to the person who called about drinking coffee in their church. I look at it like this, you don't have a funeral in a kitchen, why would you drink coffee in a sanctuary? There's a proper place for everything.

Much has been said in SpeakOut about the city of Miner looking bad, but please keep these thoughts in mind. The town has prospered and the stupid, negative thoughts have stopped for the last few years. We have a very good bunch of council members, and we will overcome the things a few of the jealous and power-hungry people in this town are saying.

People with pro-war opinions, think themselves very patriotic. Christians who embrace "Thou shalt not kill" even make exceptions for this needless war, even while overlooking the economic cost of it, which took USA from balanced budgets to trillions of dollars in debt to which our great-grandchildren will be paying. It's the other factors that concern me greatly. When our vets came home from other wars in body bags, wheel chairs, maimed, or even perfectly healthy, we proclaimed them heroes and sent them back to life as usual. This childhood I watched all our heroes return from war. My beloved uncle returned from the Korean War to a previous happy home life and turned into a wife and child abuser. My father-in-law, a World War II bomber, will still not talk about the hundreds he personally killed. A lifelong educator, I recognize veterans post-

traumatic stress disorder syndrome all too well. I see the emotional toll, the effects that killing and the horrors of war have on men. These are parents that pass it on to their families and their children. Fathers have confided in me over the last 35 years the hurt, the devastation, the regret, the nightmares. These experiences still live with them today. Many suffer in silence, bearing judgment from our war-happy nation. Is it worth the emotional toll we are paying?