I just watched a video on Iraq Veterans Against the War. Everything those vets said confirmed what I had said before we invaded, but now more and more people are seeing The Big Picture, and saying that we cannot achieve peace through violence. Violence only begets more violence, and this is how the wealthy of our nation increase their incomes.
But on a more personal level, I've been haunted this week by how a decision I made 38 years ago affected more lives than my own. Can I write this off to the folly of youth? I did have my reasons at the time, good reasons. Even now, I can defend my decision to terminate a relationship that just wasn't working at the time. That doesn't mean that either of us were or are not good people, and re-connecting this last week has confirmed that. But we certainly are very different individuals. So would we have grown apart anyway, or would we have grown together? The great unanswerable questions of "what if" will always remain unanswered.
What if Leah's Jason hadn't ben a Marine who died horrifically on his 2nd deployment to Iraq? What if I hadn't already had plans for the evening that Sam Lehman asked me to attend the AGR Christmas Party in 1975? What if I hadn't broken up with Dan Bevan in January of 1973?
While I cannot change the decisions I or others made in the past, I do feel regret for those whom I have personally hurt. And I cannot help but wonder at times if the pain I deal with (physical and/or emotional) is not some sort of repayment for the harms I have done to others.
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