i remember after 9/11, everyone was wondering who was responsible for the attack? anyways i don’t know how much time had gone by, i believe it was my junior or senior year of high school before the u.s retaliated. i remember being over at my friend richards house, when the u.s. went into the initial strikes or the “shock and awe” campaign. richard had joined the national guard before 9/11, anyways i remember watching on tv, thinking nobody will want to mess with us and that we had the baddest military on earth. so we were watching the air assault on televisioin and all fired up, richard turned on 'bombs over bagdad" as we watched.
later i would become disillusioned with the war but cant help but remember my initial excitement of witnessing this on television. i became more liberal in college and changed my views, but this initial reaction of mine is one of my life’s great shames.
richard would end up in afghanistan and had to postpone college, he got out after 1 term of service and didn’t re-enlist.
we were both foolish to be giddy about war like it was a sport we could win.