I'm an enemy troll! It's on DU it must be true! Anonymity breeds contempt.

walldude

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Tue Oct-09-07 05:34 PM
Original message

I'm an enemy troll! It's on DU it must be true! Anonymity breeds contempt.

This is why I don't come here too often anymore. Too many on DU see nothing but black and white. Well, let me tell you what this enemy troll sees. Two days ago I spent an entire day on a live internet conference with some kids stationed over in Iraq. Myself and a friend/co-worker sort of played host as people came by and stopped to talk to the soldiers who had stayed up all night to hang out and chat, and to catch some live music that was being simulcasted to them. Most of the conversations with the troops steered to banal topics like sports and the weather.

As the day wore on hundreds of questions raced through my brain, questions about Rush and his phony soldiers, about Blackwater, about equipment shortages, about the war in general. As my day got long and their night never seemed to end I finally got a few minutes alone with them. Now was my chance to prove that Rush and his ilk were nothing but liars and that most of the troops were there because they had to be, and that the people who were really supporting the troops are the ones who wanted to bring them home. I spoke directly to a girl/woman named Victoria who had ten months left in her tour.

I looked at her tired but grateful eyes, tired of the war but grateful for the chance to experience a little bit of home, and came up with my first question. I asked her... "What do you need, and where do I send it?"...

You see, this was no longer some faceless soldier, some name on a list, or someone else's friend, lover, or child. I was face to face with her and I couldn't stand the thought of using her to gain some political perspective I could use against the neo-cons on DU. I got her address and that of another group of troops from another site(the teleconference had 2 sites here and 2 in Iraq.)

I just finished packing up a couple boxes, nothing much, candy, chocolate, soft toilet paper, a few cans of American made Coke(apparently middle east coke really sucks) and shipped them off. I tell you this not for any kind of satisfaction(knowing my new friends will be tasting a bit of home next week is enough for me) but in hopes that maybe my experience will get some people to lighten up a little. It's easy to call some nameless, faceless, person your enemy, or a troll, or a host of other names. For some strange reason when that person becomes flesh and blood it's a little easier to understand their perspective and their thoughts. I realize that there are certain people on DU who are hopeless and will bash me for this post. Why wouldn't they, I voted for Nader 7 years ago. :eyes: I would hope however, that it's more just part of the cowardly anonymity of the internet than people actually thinking that another liberal albeit one with a different point of view is their mortal enemy. Maybe I'm hoping for too much. Who knows.