Monday, Mar. 10, 2003 - 10:02 am
today my little sister leaves for Parris island to become a marine.
parris island sounds innocent, islands are paradises right? anything that sounds like Paris should be fun... but i've seen a video of what they go through there- it becomes another name for hades once you see it. they puke in metal shacks filled with tear gas- i think that was the most striking image- big strong men reduced to crying and throwing up while running, well stumbling, in circles.
you might think she's a big girl, my little sister, marine usually equals big in stature and strong like rambo or something, but she is as rick described her "a baby faced girl 98 pounds soaking wet". some recruiter really got to her and got her psyched about being a marine. i have a great respect for people able to do some things, since there are so many physical things i can't do... but still my first impression was "ACK". this girl though, my half-sister, does not have EB , she can walk forever. she helped build a church for an orphanage in mexico with a school group. its a fickle condition, EB, and can skip people. it skipped her and her brother, but the middle sister- she got it. (i don't know how this sis is doing with it, i don't have that much contact with that new family. i would have liked to but life doesn't cooperate.) so as pictures of my little sister firing guns and climbing walls and being screamed at by drill sgts insults my mind, i also get a picture of her father.
he is my father too, and then i think... RUN RUN RUN get the hell out of there!!!- be a MARINE be anything that gets you away! she wants to be a combat reporter, she wants to fly helicopters and become an officer, and i hope she becomes all of this. i hate that its this time of history.
actually i hate that in this world we need armed forces at all. its sad but its a fairy tale to even just wonder about that- the "imagine" world of john lennon- because it will never happen. Humans will only respect the one with the biggest gun, don't deny it- who do humans worship? the one thats supposedly got the biggest gun in the universe- god or whatever name you've given to the bully who can't be scared that you look to for protection. throughout history humans worship what they fear. it just sucks that my sister- to escape a violent man and his humiliating ways, has to join a violent force and get humiliated to have the honor of joining up.
but don't get me wrong, as airy fairy as i can get i still don't think so unrealistically that some flower power world of peace will ever occur on this planet in our lifetime. there will always be some osama who wants to kill, or some saddam who will always need someone to hate. being beautiful and dedicated to peace will only doom a country, just ask Tibet . if you ever have the honor of meeting the current dalai lama, know that this man saw the destruction of that world and is now being kept safe by countries dedicated to keeping the biggest guns in the world shiny and in working condition. he has value, his ideals have value, but this is reality, and reality sucks, and now he is being protected by a bully bigger than china or they would have marched right on in to india to get him- but india has big bully friends- all the big bullies jostle the planet for space. thats just the way it is. it gives you the freedom to burn a flag and say how much you hate your country and say down with war and crowd area parks and say that you could run the world better by putting flowers into gun barrels- this makes me look NOT the way i am but - please don't tell me you don't see the sickness in this, the way we have to think when we are being realistic.
we want peace, we want happiness, we want to slap the president in the face (i didn't vote for him) but we KNOW that if the armed forces layed all their guns down, some psycho from somewhere over the horizon would land with another army and it would all just start over again.
so you exist within, try to tether back the violence, be peace loving, but then 9/11 happens and your friends die and your apartment fills with acrid burning haze and smells and smoke and horror, and you want vengence. its back and forth - how can you live in peace, live in love when no matter what you do, someone will bomb someone somewhere for some reason. don't tell me we wouldn't have these present day horrors if "israel" had never "happened". even back in the days of the crusaders, they didn't just sallie forth to kill the infidel, they stayed right at home sometimes and killed christians whose particular turn of belief did not suit the ruling powers. just ask the catharists and the waldensians.
even if humans looked identical, we'd probably be prejudiced against the ones who lived under a tree, or on a mountain, or at the bottom of a hill....
well this came out a right ol' rant didn't it.
so now my little sister will join the ranks of the few and the proud- i think she'll do a great job. and i , peacenik that i tend to be when i can blot out the scenes i saw on 9/11, will be happy for her. there is nothing else that can give her the opportunity the Marines will. so unlike being at home, the violence and humiliation she experiences on parris island will take her places, give her the world, give her a future- and actually make her feel good about herself. strange huh. i will try to make it to the graduation. i would still pick a flower and shove it into a gun, but i would still know that there is a reason for that gun (and after writing this i think i need a pill to keep my one personality one and not become some kind of sybil). i hate it, but i know it and i hate that i know, but i do.
�
�
~* PREVIOUS ENTRY - NEXT ENTRY *~
. ~* BACK TO NEWEST ENTRY *~ .
~* Main 'Stories and Illustrations' INDEX *~