[Vision2020] Waiting on the Avalanche

[Tom Hansen]

Remember the article "War and Faith" I posted from The Sandbox, written by
SPC Freeman, stationed in Iraq?

http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2007-August/046789.html

He has written another thought-provoking article titled "Waiting on the
Avalanche".

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Waiting on the Avalanche 
By SPC Freeman

I've been languishing here for over ten months now.

My days are long, my leisure time precious. I try to call my wife every
night; my parents when I can spare it. I check the news when I can; try to
get a glimpse of what's really happening stateside.

What I see there disappoints me.

On the one hand, I can't take anything seriously on the cable networks--more
time devoted to Paris than Baghdad. On the other, I check the news sites and
all I see is scandal, scandal, scandal. More and more, it seems to me like
this power structure is falling apart. Wiretapping, fraud, obstruction of
justice, torture. The hits just keep coming.

More and more, the tide of opinion turns against America, and against our
leadership. More and more, the group of people once thought
unstoppable--messiahs even--face blow after blow to their credibility. A
political party that used 9/11 to secure a stranglehold on power in America
is now being forced to its knees. The stroke that could end this--the stroke
that bring down the corruption and lead us into a new day--begs to be let
fall.

It's gotten so bad that we started talking about presidential primaries a
year early. We are that desperate for change that we are already talking
about a changing of the guard. Whispers of impeachment, of troop drawdown,
linger in the air. Everyone I know is sick of the talking points, sick of
the charade...

And yet, nobody does anything.

Nothing is changing.

I feel like I'm standing at the bottom of a mountain, while high above a
plate of snow and ice slowly warms in the late February sun. It is cold at
this altitude, but the promise of spring is in the air, and up from the
valleys comes the fecund smell of melting riverwater.

Soon, very soon I think, some layer in the snow will begin to melt and lose
its strength. When it does, a wall of white will wash down the face of the
peak; uprooting trees, laying bare faces of stark rock, and burying anyone
who dares to stand in its way. An avalanche is coming, I think, and though I
fear it, I await its arrival.

There is too much atop the mountain, which has stood for far too long. It is
time for change, time for renewal; time for us to cry out to the world that
we are tired of the way things are.

So when, I ask you, America? When will the avalanche come? When will the
stink of it all become too much and the public demand a return to priorities
at home? When will you demand to be heard?

I mouth these questions in whisper to the mountain; but the mountain,
resolute, remains silent.
Until then, I am waiting for its response; waiting for the rumble.

I am waiting; waiting on the avalanche.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil
and steady dedication of a lifetime." 

--Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.