Read this letter in the Washington Post from Mary Jo Cooney as she sends her only child to war – it is eloquent, beautiful and heartfelt.
Can I expect my son to return unchanged by this experience? If the media reports are any indication, that is doubtful. Will his mind be seriously disturbed by what he sees, or will his body bear wounds that will not heal? Will we, as a nation, do all that we can, as Abraham Lincoln put it, ” to care for him who shall hath borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan”?
Or will we continue to make veterans prove that they are entitled to compensation for the injuries they have suffered since we cannot make them whole?
Will it take a universal draft for President Bush and the rest of the country to understand the price that this war is exacting?
Then read the Mothers’ Day Proclamation written by Julia Ward Howe in 1870
Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts,
whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by
irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking
with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be
taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach
them of charity, mercy and patience.We women of one country will be too tender of those of another
country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From
the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says “Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance
of justice.”Read the rest here
