Bombs Close To Home

Posted by Jeff
Filed in City
April 22, 2006

It's one of my personal policies to never get out of bed to answer the phone, so when my phone rang twice in a row at about 9:00 this morning, it was normal practice to ignore it. I'm pretty proud of that habit, in an idiotic sort of way, but every once in a while I get burned... like today.

When I finally got out of bed and dug up the phone, I found a doozy of a message from a friend up in Anahim Lake. Turns out that one of my oldest friends, who is working as an embedded photojournalist with the Canadian military in Afghanistan, was traveling in the convoy that got attacked in between Kandahar and Gumbad. Holy bejeezus. There's even an interview with him, which was the first time I've heard his voice since a few months ago when he called from his project in Cambodia to say that he was on his way to Afghanistan.

When you live in one of the safest places on the planet, it's easy to get desensitized by the daily reports of war casualties across the world. Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan... the list goes on. Having one of your best friends almost blown to smithereens is a hell of a wake-up call.

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wow. thanks for sharing.

Posted by: sean Orr at April 23, 2006 12:41 AM | Quote Comment

My moms side of the family are Americans, some of my cousins are over their too. It's crazy.

Posted by: Sarah at April 23, 2006 9:01 AM | Quote Comment

Bring them home. We are not peacekeepers.

Posted by: sean orr at April 23, 2006 6:31 PM | Quote Comment

My cousins are from the States, Florida.

Unfortunatly, I think one of my cousins went over because it was the only way she could afford to get an education. She was 18 when she joined the army, before the war, she probably never thought it would happen. I don't really know, I havent spoken to her in a while.

Posted by: Sarah at April 23, 2006 7:08 PM | Quote Comment

Thats how its set up. Rich kids don't go to war. Dubya didn't go. No congressman's kids go. Just poor kids fed patriotic rah rah pseudo fascist propaganda.

In Canada its different. In Canada, everyone here thinks we're peacekeeping, but we're not. More and more Canucks will die because we are now in an agressive combat role.

Posted by: sean orr at April 23, 2006 9:56 PM | Quote Comment

While I was living in Ecuador the US was offering visas to people that went over.

Posted by: Sarah at April 24, 2006 8:48 AM | Quote Comment

Wow Sarah, that's disturbing. The US must be getting hard up for recruits these days, huh?

I just got a message from Rich, he's been getting interviewed constantly for the last few days and is going back to Cambodia in two weeks. His words were: "what can I say... I bought my ticket and it didn't get punched". Scary stuff.

Posted by: Jeff at April 25, 2006 11:56 AM | Quote Comment