A sad thing that was bound to happen...

I knew that someday it would happen, and it did -- today. This one student in one of my French 1 classes, who is a very solid A student, had been missing in action for a week now. I have to say that I was getting a bit worried, because it was very much unlike her to miss class (she had only missed one class because she was sick), and she had never called. Well, today she did.

She let me know that she was being deployed to Iraq on January 2nd, and had made the decision to stay with her family until then. At first, she added, she was ready to withdraw from all of her classes, but then her boss, at her job, I suppose, had convinced her to make arrangements with her instructors to get to finish her semester work from home. Of course, I told her that I would be willing to give her assignments to complete, and that I would let her take her final from home.

Now, this is very sad. This girl is just a kid, for God's sake! She is a sweet, unassuming 18 year old, a freshman in college, who graduated from high school in May 2004. I do not know what awaits her in Iraq, but I am not optimistic.

This brings very close to home how absurd this war is. George W. Bush is sending to war his favorite prey, the poorest and the most disenfranchised from our land. This kid probably saw the National Guard as her way to a free college education. And now, pardon my French, the Pentagon is fucking with her education by sending her to Iraq. Never mind that they are also diddling with this other kid I teach, who was told a few weeks ago that he wouldn't be deployed to Iraq because he suffers from asthma, only to be told about two weeks ago that he might go anyway (he is still fighting it, but, in the meantime, is incapable of doing any worthwhile work.)

In an e-mail to this girl, I did tell her that I personally opposed the war in Iraq, but that I supported every man and woman who is serving there, and that I would keep her in my thoughts. I can only hope that she will come back in one piece, and not shattered to the point that the rest of her life will be a waste.