I was talking with another father the other day, his daughter (24) is in the Peace Corps in THE Ukraine, not the “other” Ukraine. Sorry, an ADD-moment, why? I am wondering is it always THE Ukraine, do we often confuse it with the Other one? Sorry. How about those Twins?
Anyway, his daughter called to say she was soooo excited. First, she was going to give the local high school’s commencement address. Second, she finally got her own apartment. But she still didn’t have running water, so she had to go get water at the town well. She absolutely loves it there, he said.
Fade to the Nightly News show, pick anyone of them. The soldiers you see on the News are, like, you know, 20 years old. 20! Some even younger. It looks to me like they are disciplined, working hard, understand the mission/ goal and are doing it with professionalism and goodwill. I don’t care who you are, that is impressive.
In my office, we expect and get a lot of work from our 20-somethings. They arrive on time, work hard, and are ‘sunshine pumps’ to our customers and prospects. I am just as impressed with these “kids.â€
I just hope my generation of leaders doesn’t screw ‘em all up.
Yesterday it was 120 degrees in Baghdad.
1 user commented in " Nowhere, Ukraine and Bumtuck, Iraq: A Father’s Day "
“It looks to me like they are disciplined, working hard, understand the mission/ goal and are doing it with professionalism and goodwill. I don’t care who you are, that is impressive.”
That is looking at it from one point of view. Another point of view would be the oposite. They are not disciplined (Haditha, Abu Ghraib, the Mosque Incident, etc etc.), they dont understand the mission, (I dont think top level officials understand the mission anymore), and their job is definetely not done with professionalism and goodwill. (There have been over 100,000 casualties and wounded between Iraqi civilians since the war had started according to official UN sources.) What is happening in Iraq is a tragedy for both sides. The youth and energy of those kids, dying in Iraq could be put at better used, for peacfull purposes. And since it is Father Day, we should ask a Father whos child died thousands of miles away in a country he couldnt point on a map; how he feels about the discipline, the mission and the goal.
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