MountainMornings

“We will not try to make Afghanistan a perfect place,” said President Obama. And I remembered how, almost ten years ago, I had never heard of that country, I had never heard the words Taliban or Al Quaida or BinLaden. We lived on a peninsula, a short ferry ride away from Wall Street. The Rocker was in high school. He drove out to Sandy Hook with his friends to sit on the beach and watch the Tower’s smoke billow down the shipping channel. The Bride had just graduated college, and was working in DC, when I called her to warn her about the planes. The longest hour of my life was waiting to hear she had walked back to her apartment and was safe.

So seeing these pictures, across from our Free Speech Monument, was riveting. Like my friend’s daughter who wrote, each day, the names of our fallen soldiers like a stencil around the border of her room. Like hearing that photographers would not be allowed to document the return of fallen soldiers at Dover Air Force Base. Flags could fly on cars and bridges, but a picture of a flag embracing a coffin might be too much for us to bear?  

Yes, the drawdown is a good thing. But artists must continue to hold our politicians accountable – make music, write screenplays, take photographs – draw our attention to the real cost of war.