It's Okay For You

What a beautiful spring like week.  The snow and ice are melting at an amazing pace.  Jo has a large pen that has been full of snow and ice for months, but, today the darn thing is nearly clear, I couldn't believe it.  The horses, like me, have put on a bit of weight.  Gotta love winter!

Finally managed to get my hair cut.  Ah, it feels sooo good.  I had to wait about 15 minutes while she finished up the customer ahead of me.  I've met the customer a few times over the years.  Her husband was an engineer, a very successful engineer.  I was once told that they were probably one of the wealthiest family's in the state, though as I recall, the person said in the country.  They own 300 acres on the river, with a quarter mile of river frontage.  No question, they want for nothing.

So, the wealthy woman is chatting about her granddaughter.  She's a college graduate and recently married.  Turns out that she married an Army NCO and her granddaughter is going to be living on base, in fact was going to be moving this weekend.  OMG, you would have thought the world had come to an end.  It seems that sort of life is fine for those that have no other choices, but HER granddaughter HAD a future.  What ever was she thinking, marrying a soldier.  Not a commissioned officer but a non-commissioned officer.  I did not get the impression that she would have been one bit happier even if he had been a commissioned officer, but really, a NON commissioned officer, the horror of it all.

I happen to know that the hair dressers grandson is in the service, an enlisted man.  I would assume that the wealthy woman also knew this.  She clearly felt no shame in expressing her horror, which was considerable,  over the kind of life that her granddaughter had chosen.  The hair dresser didn't blink an eye, just kept styling he hair.

I spent most of the week thinking about the exchange and the fact that the man that sent 5,000 young American men off to an un-wise, un-necesarry war to die, thought very much the same about them as this woman did about her grandson-in-law.  It's okay for those with no other options, but not for them or theirs.