2003-2011 The Iraq War -- It's Over

On March 20, 2003 my entire family was gathered at Gering, Nebraska. We sat in my mom's livingroom as we watched the start of the Iraq War on TV. We all felt this was the thing to do, as we had been led to believe that Saddam Hussein was an integral part of the dastardly attack in New York City on 9 September 2001.

Almost nine years later, I don't believe we were told the truth and I don't believe it was the right thing to do. The score card is rather lopsided. Osama Bin Laden spent approximately 1 MILLION dollars for the attack on New York City. America has spent approximately 3 TRILLION dollars to rid the world of him. Hmmm, let's see, a TRILLION is a MILLION MILLION. I don't do math well enough to fathom how much that is!

The money is the least of the cost though, as so many young Americans and other young people lost their lives in this war. So now that I have spouted off my belief, I will get to the real subject of this post.

The reason we were all together on March 20, 2003 was because we were stranded by the biggest blizzard this part of the country has seen since the notorious 1949 Blizzard. All roads into and out of Western Nebraska were closed. There was no way to go anywhere. My mother's memorial service was on March 18 and we were all there to pay tribute to her,and we couldn't leave.

Today, as I was reading the piece in the paper about the war being officially over, I thought back to what has happened to all of us in those nearly nine years. All of the family members there, of my Mom's generation, have now passed away. Some of the young folks that were there that day have gotten married and had several babies. My husband has passed away and I have moved to a new place to live.

Thank goodness, we can't foresee the future. If we could, we would go mad knowing what challenges lie ahead. Maybe the greatest gift our creator gave us was to NOT be able to see into the future. He/She replaced it with the wonderful gift of memory though. We can even choose which memories to remember best. We can pick the good ones or we can pick the unpleasant ones.

Isn't it great to be a human being? I choose to remember the good events. Maybe, I am like the camel that sticks their head in the sand, but it's nicer this way. I think my mom would approve. Tell your mom you love her if you still have the chance. Maybe that was the real reason for this post -- to be able to tell my mom I love her. Patj