But I still have so many questions, and it doesn't really feel real to me yet. (Maybe this is because I heard about it through facebook posts.) Ray had to be at work at 6 this morning, so we called it an early-ish night last night. We don't have cable, so we wouldn't have seen it on tv. We worked on thank you notes last night until we went to bed, so we didn't get on the internet (and no, I don't need any more lecturing about how it's been almost 4 months and we still don't have them all done - I know! And I feel horrible about it!). When I got up this morning, I checked my facebook and there were all these posts about how bin Laden was dead, God bless the USA, Can we have our troops home now? etc, etc... No... it couldn't be.... I thought as I went to Fox News. There it was: "BIN LADEN DEAD, Navy SEALs kill Al Qaeda leader; body buried at sea." WHAT?!!! was probably my first thought. My second thought was, why did they bury him at sea? My third thought was probably something like, how in the heck did this happen?! I watched Obama's speech first, some other video footage they had, and then went to some other news outlets before coming here, to my blog.
I searched for videos to find out why they decided to bury him at sea, and when I found out it was to prevent shrines or other statues being built in his honor, I thought... "now that makes sense." Then, hearing and reading that they upheld the Muslim tradition to bury him 24 hours after death I was like, ok... sure..... And then the news reports said they carried out all the tradition of bathing him and wrapping him in a white cloth and all of that.... I'm sorry, this may come off a bit harsh, but I quite frankly don't give a crap how they "cared" for his body! Float it down a river of poop for all I care! He doesn't deserve that. He doesn't deserve anything.
Who knows, maybe that information was just released as a way of trying to create good PR with the Muslim world, and they really didn't do any of that. I honestly don't see any military member agreeing to wash and wrap his body, but that's just me. Maybe it all really did happen...
One emotion that I can express, is my sincere gratitude for every single member of our military. It is because of their service we have come this far. When I was in school and professors would ask if we should leave the middle east, I was always torn. If we left then, would our efforts have been in vain? Would our troops think their efforts were in vain? I know we have done good over there. I know we have accomplished more than most people realize. And now I know, our servicemembers' efforts were not in vain. Everything lead up to that moment, when bin Laden was killed.
I sometimes wonder if I would be as patriotic as I am if I hadn't married a Marine. Maybe it's because I'm getting older and think about how I want our country to be when I have children. Maybe it's because my parents taught me to be proud of our country, honor and respect the flag, and honor and respect our military members. I remember my mom telling me once she got goosebumps when our National Anthem was playing, and it seems I get them every time now as well. So to answer my own skepticism, I think I would be as patriotic (but marrying him sure didn't hurt my patriotism!).
Ok, so it feels real to me now! God bless our troops. God bless the US Navy SEALS. God bless America. It is a great day to be an American!
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