"FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM"
by Mike Palecek
I have a neighbor across the street.
We have watched each other out our front windows for forty years.
Their son played ball in our yard.
Last week that son’s boy came home in a body bag in a box in the belly of a big Boeing, back from Baghdad.
That is nothing to “b” joking about.
I am not.
But I will not “b” quiet, either.
I have talked to my neighbors since then, on the sidewalk in front of the house, and again on the side steps of St. Mark’s after Mass.
They say Timothy died because he loved freedom.
That’s nonsense. He loved basketball.
They say he had his head blown off his shoulders, his legs cut off at the knees, lost his hands, to make us free.
Of course, that’s not true. But what else do a heart-broken grandmother and grandfather have to hold on to?
Someone needs to speak for Timothy, perhaps speak to him, to tell him the truth, because we lied to him his whole life.
Timothy died because of us.
Me. You.
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mike palecek
