Putting This War Into Perspective

Regardless of your political allegiance in America, the following example is just one of many that shows us no matter how we feel about troop levels in Iraq, federal military spending, the President's job performance, etc, we still have a bitterly divided world that harbors perplexingly incongruent ideologies.

I work as a manager at a local video store. One of the many programs we offer customers is insurance on DVDs, which costs $0.25 a rental, and covers the replacement cost if a rental were to be damaged. The real perk of the insurance, however, is that a portion of every quarter we take in for insurance, the corporation in turn donates to a children's fund that provides movies and games to children who are in hospitals across the country with serious, and often terminal, illnesses. For this very reason, I work harder to sell customers on insurance than any other product our store offers. After all, it is only a quarter.

Well, not less than a week ago, about an hour before closing, there were three people in the store. One was a middle aged man walking around by himself. The other two walked together, giving me the impression that they were a couple. It was ascertainable that the two were adherents of Islam, as they spoke in Arabic and the woman wore the traditional Hijab and followed slightly behind her husband.

It was the man who had been walking by himself who made his way to the registers first. Strking up a conversation, as I do with most all customers, I came to learn that the man was a Marine, fresh off a tour of duty in Iraq within the week. Given the opporunity to engage in a short discussion, I asked the soldier to give me his account of how things are going in Iraq, how the war really looks beyond what the media tells us everyday. His optimism and enthusiasm for the work being done by American forces startled me. This was a man that had been thousands of miles away from his family and home for over a year. When it came time to ask him if he would be interested in insuring the movie he rented and donating to our children's fund, the Marine couldn't have been happier. He said, and I quote, "I'd love to, absolutely. I will always give back to a child any opportunity I can get." I thanked the soldier, thanked him for his service, and handed him his movie, amazed at the good present in some people you encounter in the world.

Less than a minute later, the couple arrived at the counter, having found two movies. I exchanged the same pleasantries with them that I would with any customer, but neither seemed interested. I thought about not even offering the insurance, as the transaction seemed to be a bothersome wait for the man. However, I ask everyone because not only does the company require me to, the insurance and the children's fund is important to me on an individual level. Just as soon as the words came out of my mouth, inviting the couple to insure their DVDs and donate to our children's fund, the woman shook her head as the man snarled back at me, "No, no, no. I need no help childrens fund. That do me no good at all. Just give my movies. That is all. No childrens fund." I was immediately taken back by the brassness with which the man seemed to be set in not spending a nickel or dime beyond what he was responsible for. I thanked them nevertheless, handed them their movies, and invited them to return again soon.

The moral of the story, as I reflected on it in the following days, is this. In America, no matter how frugal we are, no matter whether we are Democrat or Republican, Pro-Life or Pro-Choice, etc. a fundamental conviction of our country is that as a whole, we support life. We go to the end of the world, exhaust all of our means to help those around us, to rescue people in danger, and in this case, to look out for future generations of children who we rest our hopes on for the future of this great country. The Marine I helped was the perfect embodiment of that.
In the homes of the radical Islamist, however, who we are fighting as an enemy we can't always put a face to, a bearing to in this war, those things I mentioned are not what is valued. In those places, with many of thos types of people, children are not about hopes for the future, children are about accomplishing ends to means today. In those places, children are strapped with bombs are paraded out into streets, onto packed buses, into busy restaurants, only to commit acts the rest of the world is abhorred and saddened by. So, let it be known, we must defend our way of life, because if we do not, the threat to people that cherish life from those who have bitter irregard for it, is real and, unfortunately, even in America, visible.