This morning, a young friend of Rainy Day's who lives in
Singapore, asked if Rainy Day had ever marched in a protest. Now, Rainy Day has
been around long enough to have marched in several, and in a way, I guess she
did. Both march (and march, and march. She still hears her DI counting cadence
in her dreams!) and protest.
You see Rainy Day considers herself a Peace Monger. She
hates wars. She
agrees with the bumper sticker so popular in the 1960s that stated, "Wars
are unhealthy for children and other living things!" During the 1960s, she protested the Viet Nam
war the only way she knew how. (That was
so long ago that Vietnam was still two words!)
While
many of her classmates wore tie dyed clothes and long straight hair festooned
with flowers (to which Rainy Day is highly allergic), Rainy Day cut her thick
curly hair and enlisted in the WAC (Women's Army Corps, no longer around. Rainy
Day really is an antique;-). While Jane
Fonda was busy sleeping with the North Vietnamese, Rainy Day was attempting to
sleep on the ground in Alabama during Basic Training too close for comfort to
deadly, unseen, (but heard, she swears!) pygmy rattlers.
Rainy
Day never understood the hippie's protest movement. She always thought the best way to end a war
was to win it -- or it would haunt you forever.
"Look," she is fond of saying, "at the South."
She
still protests, but not by marching, camping, or chanting. She writes letters.
And she signs them with her name and adds, "I am a Woman, a Veteran, and I
Vote!" Her politicians know who she is and what she stands for. Do yours
know who you are, and what you stand for? Why not?
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