fjolnirsson
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I happened across this today...
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WHO SHOULD WE LET BE FREE?
Donald Rumsfeld pinned it on himself.
When Charles Cooper got his first Purple Heart, after the explosion went off and the shrapnel peppered him, it was personally presented by the secretary of defense.
It was one of those flukes.
Rumsfeld was in theater, Private Cooper was up for the medal, and it made a pretty good picture to send home to the folks.
That was about a month ago.
Which was about 10 months after his senior prom.
Charles Cooper graduated from Jamestown High School last June. Jamestown is where Lucille Ball was from, a pretty little city on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in Western New York. But he graduated and went in the Army and they stationed him at Fort Drum.
Which is pretty good.
Because if you’re in the Army and you’re from New York there aren’t that many places you can be stationed that aren’t a long ways from home.
But Fort Drum is just up past Rochester and Syracuse by Watertown, a good long drive, but still in New York. Though when orders came for Iraq it didn’t make much difference anymore and Charles Cooper, the youngest of six, shipped out.
That was around the holidays.
And then he got wounded.
And maybe it got him thinking or something because last week he got to a phone in Baghdad and called home to talk to his girlfriend.
Her name is Ashley.
And long distance from the war he asked her to marry him.
That’s the kind of thing you talk about to your grandchildren. You pull them up on grampa’s knee and tell them how, when you were in the war in Iraq, you asked their grandmother to be your bride. It’s a sweet, all-American kind of thing. The kind of thing that love is all about.
And that’s what Charles Cooper did.
Which is pretty good for a 19-year-old.
And this would be a pretty good story if it ended here. But it doesn’t.
It ended a week ago, when Charles Cooper got his second Purple Heart. A week ago today. They were out on patrol and there was another explosion and it killed him. It killed Private Cooper and a friend of his, a kid from Indiana who was supposed to go home next week. His name was Darren Deblanc. He was 20 and a private first class.
And they’re both dead.
Darren’s mom can cancel the welcome-home party and Ashley can try to forget her dreams of a life with Charles.
They are two more men who gave their lives for freedom.
A freedom which, ironically, neither of them were able to fully enjoy.
See, all this talk about freedom and liberty isn’t a hypothetical. It’s not theory. It’s reality. And when it comes to freedom, you either have it or you don’t. And the sad fact is that these two men – these two young men – were denied by their home states some of the freedoms you’d expect Americans to enjoy.
Namely, the right to be an adult.
Let’s talk about New York, Charles Cooper’s home.
As a 19-year-old, Charles Cooper could not apply for a permit to own or carry a handgun.
Period.
It didn’t matter that he was a soldier, that he was a decorated combat veteran, that he was fighting for his country and its security.
Back home in Jamestown, or up at Watertown, the state of New York said that until he turned 21 he wasn’t responsible enough to own a handgun of any sort.
He could carry one into combat, but he couldn’t have one at home.
Neither could he have a beer.
Like every state, New York forbids the sale of alcohol to anyone under 21. It’s meant to protect younger people who are presumably not responsible enough to have a drink.
That is a decision the state must feel they are too immature to make.
You can decide to go in the Army. You can sign a contract. You can vote and owe debts. You can ask your girl to marry you.
And you can die for your country.
But you can’t buy a can of beer.
Which isn’t right.
As has been said a million times: If you’re old enough to fight for your country, you’re old enough to enjoy its liberties. And to deny to a man or woman old enough to fight and wear the uniform of our country the full privileges of adulthood is a violation of their civil rights.
If you denied a right due to race, color, religion, sexual orientation or old age, you’d have people shouting discrimination all day long. But you deny a whole class of people the simple rights of adulthood because they’re 18, 19 or 20 and everybody thinks you’re doing them a favor.
Well, you’re not. You’re oppressing them.
The sacrifice of these two young men, and of hundreds of others under 21, should bring to those like them the full freedoms of this society.
It’s time to let people be free, it’s time to get the government off their backs, it’s time to let people live their own lives.
Isn’t that what we say about Iraq?
Isn’t that what Charles Cooper fought for?
Shouldn’t that be true in America?
Even if you’re 18, 19 or 20?
If you're old enough to fight for freedom, you're old enough to have freedom.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2005
comments?
blog
WHO SHOULD WE LET BE FREE?
Donald Rumsfeld pinned it on himself.
When Charles Cooper got his first Purple Heart, after the explosion went off and the shrapnel peppered him, it was personally presented by the secretary of defense.
It was one of those flukes.
Rumsfeld was in theater, Private Cooper was up for the medal, and it made a pretty good picture to send home to the folks.
That was about a month ago.
Which was about 10 months after his senior prom.
Charles Cooper graduated from Jamestown High School last June. Jamestown is where Lucille Ball was from, a pretty little city on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in Western New York. But he graduated and went in the Army and they stationed him at Fort Drum.
Which is pretty good.
Because if you’re in the Army and you’re from New York there aren’t that many places you can be stationed that aren’t a long ways from home.
But Fort Drum is just up past Rochester and Syracuse by Watertown, a good long drive, but still in New York. Though when orders came for Iraq it didn’t make much difference anymore and Charles Cooper, the youngest of six, shipped out.
That was around the holidays.
And then he got wounded.
And maybe it got him thinking or something because last week he got to a phone in Baghdad and called home to talk to his girlfriend.
Her name is Ashley.
And long distance from the war he asked her to marry him.
That’s the kind of thing you talk about to your grandchildren. You pull them up on grampa’s knee and tell them how, when you were in the war in Iraq, you asked their grandmother to be your bride. It’s a sweet, all-American kind of thing. The kind of thing that love is all about.
And that’s what Charles Cooper did.
Which is pretty good for a 19-year-old.
And this would be a pretty good story if it ended here. But it doesn’t.
It ended a week ago, when Charles Cooper got his second Purple Heart. A week ago today. They were out on patrol and there was another explosion and it killed him. It killed Private Cooper and a friend of his, a kid from Indiana who was supposed to go home next week. His name was Darren Deblanc. He was 20 and a private first class.
And they’re both dead.
Darren’s mom can cancel the welcome-home party and Ashley can try to forget her dreams of a life with Charles.
They are two more men who gave their lives for freedom.
A freedom which, ironically, neither of them were able to fully enjoy.
See, all this talk about freedom and liberty isn’t a hypothetical. It’s not theory. It’s reality. And when it comes to freedom, you either have it or you don’t. And the sad fact is that these two men – these two young men – were denied by their home states some of the freedoms you’d expect Americans to enjoy.
Namely, the right to be an adult.
Let’s talk about New York, Charles Cooper’s home.
As a 19-year-old, Charles Cooper could not apply for a permit to own or carry a handgun.
Period.
It didn’t matter that he was a soldier, that he was a decorated combat veteran, that he was fighting for his country and its security.
Back home in Jamestown, or up at Watertown, the state of New York said that until he turned 21 he wasn’t responsible enough to own a handgun of any sort.
He could carry one into combat, but he couldn’t have one at home.
Neither could he have a beer.
Like every state, New York forbids the sale of alcohol to anyone under 21. It’s meant to protect younger people who are presumably not responsible enough to have a drink.
That is a decision the state must feel they are too immature to make.
You can decide to go in the Army. You can sign a contract. You can vote and owe debts. You can ask your girl to marry you.
And you can die for your country.
But you can’t buy a can of beer.
Which isn’t right.
As has been said a million times: If you’re old enough to fight for your country, you’re old enough to enjoy its liberties. And to deny to a man or woman old enough to fight and wear the uniform of our country the full privileges of adulthood is a violation of their civil rights.
If you denied a right due to race, color, religion, sexual orientation or old age, you’d have people shouting discrimination all day long. But you deny a whole class of people the simple rights of adulthood because they’re 18, 19 or 20 and everybody thinks you’re doing them a favor.
Well, you’re not. You’re oppressing them.
The sacrifice of these two young men, and of hundreds of others under 21, should bring to those like them the full freedoms of this society.
It’s time to let people be free, it’s time to get the government off their backs, it’s time to let people live their own lives.
Isn’t that what we say about Iraq?
Isn’t that what Charles Cooper fought for?
Shouldn’t that be true in America?
Even if you’re 18, 19 or 20?
If you're old enough to fight for freedom, you're old enough to have freedom.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2005
comments?
Last edited:
