Protesting in the New World

I am sitting here, up late as per usual. And I get this rush of memories overcoming me suddenly. I was watching CNN and they were talking about the war...and I suddenly remembered when it all started. I was sitting in my Cardinal Stritch dorm room debating the need of such a war with anyone that would listen to me. It was the end of February, and CNN and Fox News were filled with talk of war. To go back even further than this, I remember having a discussion on Sept. 11th, right before I found out about the attacks. And my English teacher was saying that we were part of this generation that did not know war. We were naive, and we thought that it could never happen again. Vietnam was so horrible, and no one wanted to experience that again. And I remember thinking that as I watched the bombs come down. I remember thinking that we are in trouble and that we are going to experience more than we ever knew how to handle. And as I watch the death toll add up, I remember the eutopian society that we experienced for most of our lives. Times of growth, solving internal problems, and general happiness. And the war didn't really hit me until I was in my friend Jeff's apartment in Boston. We were playing some ESPN football, when all of the sudden we heard whistles and chants and drums....and we looked out the window to find about 2,000 people marching the streets. This was something of dreams, only seen on history videos. So we rushed out there, eager to be a part of history. As we get on the street, I remember Jeff, like a child trying to take it all in. With me feeling very out of place, like we had hit a time warp back to 1969. "Stop the killing, stop the war!" could be heard throughout the crowd, and I joined in those chants. I stood next to this kid, who couldn't have been older than 7, and seeing his face. The world he would grow up in, would be much different than mine. I remember feeling like we could do something about the war and if enough people protested, we could change the mind of the government...I was so wrong. I later found out that Boston wasn't alone. In almost every big city, there was a protest. But it did nothing, and we are still in a war. I currently know only one person in Iraq, my fraternity brother Jake. I worry about him everyday, literally. And check the list of the dead every chance I get. And everytime I do this, I get very scared. I can't say that there is no reason for war, but the reason we're there isn't justify-able. With 2,267 killed and 16,653 wounded...it hardly seems valid. It hardly seems right. There are 850 U.S. soldiers getting killed every year. And it doesn't seem to stop, it doesn't seem to have an end. I can't imagine the countless family members and friends that grieve every day. It's unbearable. It's too hard to think about.
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