Children of War

Protester, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

There's a seven year old little girl down the street named Quinn and around a year ago a hand-lettered sign appeared in the window of her house reading "Stop the War". The other day I was walking by the house and started thinking about how different it must be to have a childhood where you are so acutely aware of war. My biggest concern as a young child was saving the whales, not stopping a war.

I sometimes forget we are living with a war. When I think back to the most culturally popular war, WWII, I picture sacrifice. I picture ration coupons, collecting scrap rubber and victory gardens. I imagine a population that truly goes without to support a cause. Iraq doesn't feel this way. If we didn't have friends who are directly affected by Iraq I could probably forget about it entirely. War? What war?

On March 19th it will be five years since my country invaded Iraq. M. and I did what was within our power to voice opposition at that time. We marched. We protested. We were yelled at, cussed at, flipped off, but it felt important to not stand by as our government did something we so deeply disagreed with. Now it feels futile but I don't regret standing up even in a small way.

Five years later our Attack Iraq? No! sticker has gone to the junkyard with our crap-ass Neon. We have a child born in wartime, something I had hoped to never experience. I still feel the sting of our useless protests. Will Iraq be as acute a reality to Finn as it is to our neighbor's kid down the street? I hope not but again I feel small and unimportant, incapable of turning any tide. I can only hope that it will be over sooner than later and then our country and move forward and deal with the ramifications of our government's choices.

I won't be able to mark the fifth anniversary with protest because I'll be working. I hope some of our readers will decide to voice their opposition on that day to send yet another message to end the war.