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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>Children marching as to war</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Barbara Gloudon
Friday, September 22, 2006
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>War in the east, war in the west,
War up North, war down South.
Everywhere is war.
- Bob Marley<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=80 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Barbara Gloudon </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>MONDAY MORNING. Atlanta International Airport. I round a corner. and run into them. young soldiers, male and female, black and white. heading off. to war. If not this day, then some other day. some day soon.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Soldiery is associated with strong, brave men. That's the way it used to be before gender equality changed the definition. Rewind and come again. Today's soldiers are supposed to be strong men AND women marching off to war, with the cross of freedom going on before. Right?<P class=StoryText align=justify>The soldiers in the Atlanta airport looked like children to me. I doubt if any was over 25. They strutted around trying to look stern, keeping up the soldierly image in their camouflage of pale grey and dull tan, emulating, they say, the shifting shadows of the treacherous desert sands.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The boys wore the cruelly butchered Army regulation haircuts. I've never figured out why humiliation has to be wreaked upon the scalp of soldiers, exposing their ears to bitter winds and searing sun. Devoid of their crowning glory, they looked twice as vulnerable. I can't recall now what had been done to the tresses of the young black girl in the group, but she, like others whose childhood was being rapidly replaced by force-ripe adulthood, was stocking up on candy bars and magazines in an airport store. Is it gender correctness or national desperation which now sends young women out to face the foe?<P class=StoryText align=justify>At a bank of telephones, four males were talking with intense concentration, the instruments held close to their mouths, their bodies exuding urgency. It was easy to imagine sobbing girls at the other end of the line, or mothers assuring their sons that every little thing's gonna be all right. It's the role of women to maintain the lie as men go off to war.<P class=StoryText align=justify>This time, though, the soldiers weren't men. They were boys. boys who should be playing football or baseball or whatever, boys who should be in college, preparing for full adult life. The girls, too, should be doing the things young women do - getting educated, wearing pretty clothes and falling in love, not becoming fashionistas of the trenches, deluded into accepting camouflage suits and heavy combat boots as accessories for bravery.<P class=StoryText align=justify>When I passed one boy, our eyes met. He smiled. I smiled back and he said, "Morning ma'am." I said, "Morning" too, all the while thinking: "This boy could be my son. This boy is going to war. This boy could be dead pretty soon."<P class=StoryText align=justify>Old men and old women don't DO war. They PLAN war. They manufacture the reasons, make the excuses to send children to take life in the name of freedom. On the other side, the enemy prepares to sacrifice their offspring too in a wasteful senseless ritual. All have deluded themselves into proclaiming that the world will be the better for it.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Strangest thing. by the time our Air Jamaica flight to Montego Bay was called, the children heading for war had all left the area. By the time we had become accustomed to their presence, they had vanished like smoke, or sand shadows. gone off to face the unknown while adults who shou
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>Barbara Gloudon
Friday, September 22, 2006
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>War in the east, war in the west,
War up North, war down South.
Everywhere is war.
- Bob Marley<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=80 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Barbara Gloudon </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>MONDAY MORNING. Atlanta International Airport. I round a corner. and run into them. young soldiers, male and female, black and white. heading off. to war. If not this day, then some other day. some day soon.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Soldiery is associated with strong, brave men. That's the way it used to be before gender equality changed the definition. Rewind and come again. Today's soldiers are supposed to be strong men AND women marching off to war, with the cross of freedom going on before. Right?<P class=StoryText align=justify>The soldiers in the Atlanta airport looked like children to me. I doubt if any was over 25. They strutted around trying to look stern, keeping up the soldierly image in their camouflage of pale grey and dull tan, emulating, they say, the shifting shadows of the treacherous desert sands.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The boys wore the cruelly butchered Army regulation haircuts. I've never figured out why humiliation has to be wreaked upon the scalp of soldiers, exposing their ears to bitter winds and searing sun. Devoid of their crowning glory, they looked twice as vulnerable. I can't recall now what had been done to the tresses of the young black girl in the group, but she, like others whose childhood was being rapidly replaced by force-ripe adulthood, was stocking up on candy bars and magazines in an airport store. Is it gender correctness or national desperation which now sends young women out to face the foe?<P class=StoryText align=justify>At a bank of telephones, four males were talking with intense concentration, the instruments held close to their mouths, their bodies exuding urgency. It was easy to imagine sobbing girls at the other end of the line, or mothers assuring their sons that every little thing's gonna be all right. It's the role of women to maintain the lie as men go off to war.<P class=StoryText align=justify>This time, though, the soldiers weren't men. They were boys. boys who should be playing football or baseball or whatever, boys who should be in college, preparing for full adult life. The girls, too, should be doing the things young women do - getting educated, wearing pretty clothes and falling in love, not becoming fashionistas of the trenches, deluded into accepting camouflage suits and heavy combat boots as accessories for bravery.<P class=StoryText align=justify>When I passed one boy, our eyes met. He smiled. I smiled back and he said, "Morning ma'am." I said, "Morning" too, all the while thinking: "This boy could be my son. This boy is going to war. This boy could be dead pretty soon."<P class=StoryText align=justify>Old men and old women don't DO war. They PLAN war. They manufacture the reasons, make the excuses to send children to take life in the name of freedom. On the other side, the enemy prepares to sacrifice their offspring too in a wasteful senseless ritual. All have deluded themselves into proclaiming that the world will be the better for it.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Strangest thing. by the time our Air Jamaica flight to Montego Bay was called, the children heading for war had all left the area. By the time we had become accustomed to their presence, they had vanished like smoke, or sand shadows. gone off to face the unknown while adults who shou