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Connecting the disconnect

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By STEVE OTTO Steve Otto

sotto@tampatrib.com sotto@tampatrib.com

Published: November 1, 2009

I've got this friend. He's a veteran of the Vietnam War and you don't have to be around him that much to realize he leans a little to the gung-ho side.

He believes we all should be armed to the teeth, and I think he spends the bulk of his day exchanging e-mails with like-minded people around the country.

You can imagine how he feels about the way we are handling - or not handling - things across the globe.

It might be easy to dismiss him as another one of those right-wing nut cases who huddle around the radio listening to Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck, and he is a little bit of that.

But if you look closer, you might cut him a little slack. He knows what war is about. He has been there. The conflict that swallowed him up 40 years ago still haunts him.

He has a son-in-law in Afghanistan. With any luck, he will be back briefly for Christmas. He closely follows world events, which puts him ahead of a large chunk of us who are more concerned with who is going to be the Bucs' starting quarterback next week or how we are going to pay for health insurance next year.

He also is the sort of guy who will go into a restaurant, see a small group of men and women wearing military fatigues, and buy their lunches without telling them. He also will stop by their table on the way out to shake their hands and thank them for their service.

The disconnect

How many of us do that? Afghanistan ... Pakistan ... Whateverstan. The current war is a disconnect, despite graphic headlines and daily stories of men, women and even children blowing themselves up in a seemingly senseless slaughter.

A few years ago, it seemed to be more about us. It was a personal war of revenge against terrorists who came to our country and killed thousands of Americans.

Maybe it's a little less so in Tampa, if only because of the huge numbers of active and retired military who live and work here. How many towns have a group of people who stand near the road leading to the air base every week and proudly wave American flags in support of the troops?

But it is still, for the most part, someone else's war. Without a draft, the war is left to volunteers. While our military is certainly the most skilled and powerful force there ever was, it is lacking the sons and daughters - again for the most part - of decision makers who can afford to keep their children away from military service.

Every now and then it comes home to us with the story of someone from the neighborhood who has been killed. But then that passes and life continues.

Filed away

It exists as one more piece of information to be filed in our brains along with a cacophony of things that shout at us nonstop from the overload of cable TV and radio news.

Decisions are being made as the current administration decides how much of a commitment we are willing to make and what the end game should be. Now would be a good time for the rest of us to reconnect with what got us here in the first place and to speak up.

It can't be someone else's war. We have to be in it together or not at all.

Keyword: Otto Graphs, for more of Steve Otto's musings.

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