Saturday, April 22, 2006

Afghanistan I

A very bad day for us today in Afghanistan.

Last week, my nephew submitted his application to join the reserves. Last week, one of his school pals, who is in the reserves, got a call. Did he want to go to Afghanistan? He mentioned he wasn’t finished high school yet. So that was that. But I’m sure they’ll be calling him again in a few months. Luckily, service is still voluntary.

Last weekend, I met a really, really polite bright young guy. I suspected, given his manners, he was in the military. I was right. He’s 22 and has one year of engineering studies left before he’s ready to be shipped over. He was looking forward to going overseas. He’ll be doing mine-clearing, he said. Useful work. How did we raise these patriots? This has happened behind my back.

(Incidentally, I didn’t get a chance to say a proper good-bye and good luck to this young guy, so good-bye and bonne chance. I’m sure you’ll pass (or have already passed) that French test, no problem.)

So what do we owe the Afghan people? Gotta think about this for awhile.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I have a feeling its got very little to do with the people of Afghanistan and more to do with a) getting rid of the Taliban b) the war on terror and c) finding a certain person!