afghanistan

On the journey towards the beloved, you live by dying at every step

Even the air of this country has a story to tell about warfare. It is possible here to lift a piece of bread from a plate and following it back to its origins, collect a dozen stories concerning war-how it affected the hand that pulled it out of the oven, the hand that kneaded the dough, how war impinged upon the field where wheat was grown.

First Afghanistan, now Iraq. So who's next? Syria? North Korea? Iran? Where will it all end?' If these illegal interventions are permitted to continue, the implication seems to be, pretty soon, horror of horrors, no murderously repressive regimes might remain.

War is life multiplied by some number that no one has ever heard of.

The death of American soldiers is as painful as the death of civilians in Afghanistan, and what makes our world a better place is not pouring more guns and weapons in this country, but educating the uneducated population. Since, those guns can ended up in the hands of dangerous group that can take the lives of many poor people in Afghanistan and everywhere else.

I have the impression that our children are much more excited about going to school than children in other countries are. They think of it as a special privilege. Going to school, being with other children, getting books and pencils - all of that is like a dream for them.

__ know you're still young but I want you to understand and learn this now. Marriage can wait, education cannot. You're a very very bright girl. Truly you are. You can be anything you want Laila. I know this about you. And I also know that when this war is over Afghanistan is going to need you as much as its men maybe even more. Because a society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated Laila. No chance.

If you have a problem with me, it is OK, because Mullah Omar does too.

Life is Too Short and Memories Are Forever!

I looked westward and marveled that, somewhere over those mountains, Kabul still existed. It really existed, not just as an old memory, or as the heading of an AP story on page 15 of the San Francisco Chronicle.

We could never go back to how things were on the day before 9/11, but maybe I could go back to who I was.

If I can be perfectly blunt, his humanities teacher was an ass.

All my life my dad felt this need to protect his kids from a war he fought, a war I believed could never reach out and touch us, could never hurt us__nd yet he fed us lies with his answers, shielding us from the truth about what he did there, about what he saw, about who he was before the war, and about what he became because of it. He lied to protect us from his memories, from his nightmares. Standing with my dad at The Wall, I knew the truth__o one could know so many names engraved in granite if he 'never was in danger.

The last two days I__e been on long bus rides, driven through the countryside on the back of a motorbike, and crossed rivers on wooden boats, traversing currents into a different century. It__ late and dark, but I__ so close now. My uncle died five kilometers from here.

I asked my dad once if his high school teachers began treating kids differently during Vietnam, when they knew some of their students would be drafted and sent to war. I was curious because for sure we__ started treating our military kids differently after 9/11. He just shrugged and changed the subject, like he always did. And that was okay with me. He__ go back and change a lot of things if he could; and like everyone else, I__ give anything to go back to the day before 9/11__ut all we can do is move forward.

I felt so much pride, so much love. You get a handful of days like this in a lifetime. Take in every minute. They__l be over soon enough, and you never know what tomorrow will bring.

Honestly, I had no idea how to respond. My senior year of college I__ taken a seminar titled Public Education: Situations and Strategies. I thought about emailing my professor, maybe suggest some new topics and help him get current. Maybe he__ invite me back as a guest lecturer. He__ probably expect some strategies along with the situations though, so I guess that wouldn__ work, but whatever.

This is my worst fear. It__ not keeping my students safe from terrorists, it__ knowing what to do when the Chaplain comes to take Johnny out of class because not letting the terrorists win means sometimes the good guys are going to die. And those good guys have kids, and they__e sitting in my classroom.