“We will be soldiers, so our sons may be farmers, so their sons may be artists.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

– Thomas Jefferson

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As beautiful as the former quote is, and as much as I’d like to believe it — the latter quote rings a more sober, unflinching note. Frontline‘s “The Wounded Platoon” investigates soldiers suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in a quiet, empathetic, and respectful way, with a welcomed void of political commentary about the Iraq war. I was watching it on TV last night, crashed out on the futon (my attempt at “cold turkey” gone tepid via some Hennessey that my wife got for flambé), as the cat kneaded my crotch. Until they start drafting near-sighted Canadians with high blood-pressure and carpal tunnel, I’m safe from war. I used to be an artist, and never did I think to thank a soldier for securing such liberty and peace-time; my arrogance was only tempered with some modernist myth about a humble Van Gogh. The soldiers, under the spell of both psychiatric and street drugs, met up three years later at a grave site of a fallen Sargent. They followed one of them as he rode across America — the sadness of a flat open road occasionally punctuated by the sadness of the reoccurring fat waitress, in some state the shape of a box bled red with desperation. At the grave, the wife cried, and thanked them all for coming, her “all” cloaked in a southern y’all, her unwiped tears half-dried on her face. When I was more arrogant, I used to make fun of people who said y’all. I used to spout off about politics with some liberal mag folded in my back pocket. Now I just cry at the TV.

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