Children of Soldiers Get Cut-Outs of Missing Parents

Photo from the New York Times article
Elaine Meinel Supkis

It is hard, keeping up with the insanity in the old USA. The picture on the front page of the NYT of a child swinging with a cut-out of his missing dad who is off in Iraq waiting to be blown up or to drive off while Haliburton employees get blown up, blew my mind. Boom. Gah. This is demented, like child abuse demented. Then there is more about the abused pages working for the GOP in Congress. Gah again. What are they trying to do, turn me into a bulimic?

This story is so depressing.

By KATIE ZEZIMA
Published: September 30, 2006

HERMON, Me. — It was the first day of school, and distance not withstanding, 9-year-old Baylee Smith wanted to take a picture with her father, Mark, who is stationed with a National Guard unit in Afghanistan. Real daddy was not available, but Sergeant Smith’s doppelgänger was.

“Where’s Flat Daddy?” an excited Baylee asked as her stepmother, Jennifer Smith, pulled a large cardboard picture of Sergeant Smith, in his uniform, out of her Chevy Blazer and propped him on the bumper. The two, along with Ms. Smith’s young sons, Alec and Derek, posed for a picture with their Flat Daddy, who promptly fell down.

“Stop it Dad, that’s not funny. It’s not a joke,” Baylee said with a laugh.

How delightful. So, these children will play around with a picture cut-out in lieu of a daddy or mommy and then if they get killed or seriously maimed, what will happen, psychologically? I dread to think. Calling one's father 'flat daddy' and popping the thing up and down and making jokes about it...and then the child is taken by a crying parent to this hole in the ground and is told 'flat daddy' is now 'buried daddy'? Or if daddy comes home missing the lower half of his body as so many have during this endless war?

This whole thing is very gruesome. Will these kids end up like the man in 'Psycho'? Who can tell? As rich daddies go home to their children and then have fun day and night, collecting big, fat paychecks, as they buy second and third vacation homes, as the idle rich's children party at college and high school like the drunken slut daughters of our chimperor, these children get cardboard cut-outs to prop at the dinner table.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, children work hard to kill these same cardboard characters who are hardly human to them. They throw rocks at them and strip the bodies bare if they can. Everyone hates these daddies with an amazing passion.

So both sides, the children are being warped by this stupid war. And just like my horror at the news that Little Elmo is going to explain how Flat Daddy becomes Buried Daddy but don't worry, all will be well, all we need is to paper over death! Gah again.

Back to the Foley affair, it is increasingly clear that the GOP worked hard to cover up a crime and not only that, allowed the criminal to continue chairing the Exploited and Missing Children Committee (maybe they should look in his cellar).

Then later today, an Associated Press article on the SF Chronicle's website reported that the kid's congressman, Rodney Alexander (R-LA), found out about the story ten or eleven months ago and contacted the kid's parents and the House GOP leadership. Alexander said that the kid's parents wanted to let the matter drop. What did Alexander tell the parents, and did that influence their deciding to let it go? Who else did Alexander tell about this? Why didn't he take further action since he knew Foley would continue interacting with pages, continued to chair the House caucus on missing and exploited children, and that Foley continued to remain in the House leadership?

The Associated Press now has an updated story saying that Rep. Alexander now says he found out about the allegations "some months ago" from a reporter. Bull, it sounds more like he found out from his staff, did nothing, then found out from a reporter and didn't have a choice but to act. When did the kid email the staff, and when did the reporter contact the congressman - how much time lagged in between?

Another odd point. In the earlier story, Alexander says he told the House leadership about the incident. Now, in the updated story, Alexander says that he passed the information along to Rep. Thomas Reynolds, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Republican campaign organization (perhaps that's what he means by "leadership," or perhaps he's changing his story to protect Hastert). It's a bit odd that he'd report this to Reynolds, since Reynolds is in charge of re-electing Republicans to congress. Why tell him? Was this an effort to help Foley find a way to defend against these charges should they come up during his next election? And in any case, we're to believe that Reynolds didn't tell Hastert about this?

This all stinks to high heaven. So our media has kept it pretty much on the back pages like the NYT has it on a 'blog'. But the AP people are going after it more and more now and maybe it will actually make news for more than 24 hours?

Perhaps. But then, the massive bloodfest in Iraq and Afghanistan barely cracks into the news. And now people are killing again in our schools. Time for us to talk about how great America is and how happy our children are which is why they are being raped and murdered in school by crazed gunmen or the children are shooting each other or their principals and teachers. Yes, we certainly are a role model for the rest of humanity.

Time for the news to talk about Paris Hilton's miniature dog.

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Comments

[Rodney Reidq]

It is a depressing story.

So many men and women have been lost, and in the past 18 months, your chances of getting out of Iraq service if you've ever been in the military seem slim.

[Rodney Reid]

Huh:

"NORAD scrambles jets to intercept Russian bombers"

http://news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/TopStories/ContentPosting.aspx?newsitemid=CTVNews%2f20060929%2frussian_bombers_060929&feedname=CTV-TOPSTORIES_V2&showbyline=True

[D. F. Facti]

Worthy of Joseph Heller.

The Army probably paid a consulting firm 2 zillion dollars to come up with the Flat Daddy concept.

[Daliwood]

Well, when the White House has Flat Bush, Flat Cheney, Flat Rummy, Flat Condi, etc., it was bound to trickle down to the little people.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Cut them in half, too!

As for the Russian jet stuff: I got the story from a Russian source last night but couldn't focus on writing, I was pretty tired. And the 18181 story shot up into the news again, too!

Will be saying a LOT about the jet scrambling. Um, 911!!!! Yup.