YELLOW RIBBON SHORTAGE: Yesterday, I wrote that I was going to buy some yellow ribbon and make bows to put on the peace signs in our front yard. So I got to the local craft supplies / “notions” store around 5:30 p.m., and the ribbon department was nearly totally out of yellows.
The point of this, you’ll remember, was to send a message of support for US troops– while totally not ignoring the devastation being rained on Iraqi troops and civilians and without diluting at all our family’s stand against the war.
So all I could find was two spools of very thin (maybe 3 mm.) satin ribbon. I spooled it quickly over the thumb and little finger of my left hand to make multi-looped bows of as much volume as possible. Made four of them. Tied one to each side of each of our yard signs. They looked pretty good as I did them, though when I stepped back they looked a little wimpy.
Saturday night, I bumped into my friend “jailbird” Michele at a potluck. (You remember Michele from this post; and this one. She’s the person who started the idea of doing an antiwar sit-in in our local Congressman’s office on March 20th.)
On Saturday she was once again really upset about the war. Her daughter’s boyfriend joined the Marines about six months ago. “They lied to him!” she said, again and again, shaking her head in disbelief. “They said he would just be able to learn computers! They said he would never go anywhere near the front line of any war.”
The young man’s recruitment had been a sort of long-drawn-out seduction campaign by the recruiters, who started when he was only 16. (“Only 16! It’s an outrage!”) Michele and her life-partner had tried and tried to explain to him that there were other ways to learn computers. But the recruiters relentlessly maintained the seduction.
He signed up shortly after his 18th birthday. Trained in California. And a few weeks ago was shipped out to Kuwait. (“They lied to him!”)
Michele said her daughter bursts into tears whenever she thinks about it.
I can imagine that young man, and so many other young men and women like him, stranded out there now in a continually threatening “hostile enviornment”, in a place where so many pro-war pundits had promised them– promised all of us– that the entry of US troops would be “a cakewalk”.
A cakewalk, by the way, is a sort of fun contest people used to engage in at county fairs here in the US; also, a jazz-era dance. What it is NOT is what those young soldiers have been sent out to endure.
Yeah, Michele, they lied to all of us.
4 thoughts on “YELLOW RIBBON SHORTAGE:”
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Why people post this drivel is beside me. Part of the package that goes with signing on the dotted line to serve our country is a consent to adhere to the soldier’s creed.
“I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy the enemies of the United States of America in close combat.
I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.
I am an American Soldier.”
I totally like text writen by Linda! They all lie to us. But what can we do? Its a very strange world.
But what you can realistic know about what is happening you can read all in Hollwood news. My friend once told me about this link and i often go and read stuff. Its really realistic what people do:
http://www.platinum-celebs.com/hollywood/
I support the troops. I support the President. I am looking online for Yellow Ribbon,and cannot find what I want for Patriotic bows. My son is presently in Iraq. He went with his local National Guard Company, and we know many of the men and women who live locally who are now there. I just viewed a “Have you Forgotten” on ‘Bows In Bloom’ website, and once again, it shook both me and my husband to the core. Freedom has never been free, and Wars have been going on since time began. I saw a bunch of the Anit-War people who made several pages in our local paper a few weeks ago. A woman from Germany said that our troops should never have been in Germany in WWII. Does that mean that Hitler should have gone on killing? Should Saddam have gone on butchering and killing? My son is in the hot country of Iraq as a carpenter, and a crude remark was made that he may shoot himself in the hand with a nail gun. Our men and women [and we can’t say ‘young’ anymore, because I know of 53+ year-old friends of our children who are there!]are putting their lives on the line. Four were killed yesterday. It doesn’t matter whether they are carrying a nail gun, or a real gun, and I’m sure that they’re trained to carry both. Those people are out to kill our Troops, our sons and daughters, and us if they could get the chance. Does anyone yet remember 9-11-01? It is still fresh in my mind. I pray day and night for my son, and for his local company, and all of our Troops, our Allies’ Troops, and our President and our leaders. God keep them safe, may angels surround them at all times, and bring them home to us safe and sound. We are not young, this is our youngest child. We have great-grandchildren. We have lived a long time, and these things have been going on all of our lives. If some would stop complaining and pray, pray, pray, we can accomplish something. Freedom isn’t free, and never has been. God bless. Isabel.
I would love for someone to give directions on how to make a large yellow bow for displaying on my house for Matt Maupin who has been captured in Iraq.
I really need guidance on this project. I want to make a real nice display.