half mast

Seeing the flag at half mast, I can respect the pain the families and friends of those students killed at Virginia Tech must feel. I can also wonder about the pain in the heart of the young man who could only see his way out of his own pain by killing the others before taking his own life.

I wonder, too, how the familes and friends of our military sons and daughters and friends must feel seeing the flag bowed for the students but not bowed daily for those who come back from Iraq in body bags. Or, perhaps sometimes worse, coming back alive but with permanent head injuries. Or coming back with the poison of depleted uranium lodged in their bodies, waiting to strike their children yet to be born.

And, to acknowledge the widening ripple of violence, I wonder how the families and friends of those who die because they have no health insurance to pay for their medical needs must feel? Especially when those who have the power to initiate change - don't, because they say private coverage works.

The ripple continues to grow in circumference, and now the flag needs to honor the deaths of those in other countries due to starvation, disease, violence, all of which to one degree or another have our fingerprints on them.

No, not that we are each of us personally responsible for the deadly decisions of others, but as members of the (recently) wealthiest, most powerful nation on this planet, we aren't exactly innocent, either.

Maybe the flag should be at permanent half mast.
Mourning our friends and family members who have died needlessly.
Mourning our own hearts that can't see past "patriotism" and "capitalism."