Too Much To Ask

clipped from davidbellavia.com Lying in the road is a young Iraqi woman. I run over to help. She’s caught a round just below her temple. Her stunning beauty has been ruined forever. She cries, “Paper! Paper” over and over until the ambulance arrives to take her away. An old lady emerges from the schoolhouse-turned voting site, sheets of blue paper in hand. She gives one to the wounded girl, who clutches it to her like a prized possession even as the ambulance carries her away. The ballot was her voice. I came home in search of that woman’s spirit in the hearts of my fellow Americans.  I came home expecting to find the sacrifice of these brave patriots revered at every turn by those who overwhelmingly sent us to war from Washington. I’m still looking. If you can’t bring yourself to give the living the sense of accomplishment for winning a war that many claimed was endless, at least humor the dead. Is that too much to ask for?