The War Effort

I realize that there's no one reading this blog except the Wife, but eventually someone else will find it and, if they're at all like me, they'll swing back to the beginning and come across this.

Here's the thing. I cannot join the military. I'm on brain medication (SSRIs and antipsychotics) and not even the Coast Guard will take you if you need medication to function. As far as I'm aware, they don't take insulin dependent diabetics either which sort of makes sense. I mean, what happens if you're stuck somewhere and you can't get hold of your medication? I've long come to grips with this, although I did go through a "What do you mean, you won't take me" phase and a "Well, if I can survive without my pills, they'll take me" phase which eventually lead to a "Jesus Christ, I'm the worst kind of asshole without my pills even when I'm not trying to kill myself" phase.

Anyway, instead of serving my country, I'm trying to do my bit elsewhere. Which brings me to this post.

"Gee, Zach," I hear you say. "This isn't WWII. The troops can buy socks and sweaters and stuff. We don't need to make 'em." This is true. However, some of the stuff they can't buy. Like helmetliners. And, honestly, it means something to get something hand made.

"But Zach," I hear you say. "I'm a bleeding heart liberal! I'm against the war!" Great. I'm not a big fan of it either. But a lot of these people didn't join the Armed Forces for much more than the paid college education. And even if they did, so what? To use the tired rhetoric, it's our sons and daughters and brothers and sisters over there. My father fought in the Vietnam War. I am immensely proud of my generation for not treating our returning soldiers the way my father's generation treated him. You can be against the war and still feel compassion for the people caught in it.

"Okay, Zach," I hear you say. "What's the point, then?"

The point is that there are a whole bunch of websites out there that will give you a pattern and an address to send it. So if you've got some spare time or some spare yarn, put something together. You'll brighten someone's day.

And yes, I'm including a list of sites.

http://www.citizensam.org/ Citizen S.A.M. is Citizen Support America's Military. It has the helmet liner pattern, patterns for quilts for veterans and some nifty patterns for the K-9 units.

http://www.theshipsproject.com/ The Ships Project was started slightly after September 11. It sends hats and slippers and stuff to the troops.

http://www.redsweaters.org/ Red Sweaters is not a protest site. It's a way of humanizing some of the numbers coming out of the War on Terror. I mean, honestly, when I see that the "Current Number of dead American Soldiers" is 4229 the only thing I can think of is that it's a kinda large number. Nina Rosenberg, the woman in charge of Red Sweaters felt the same way, so she hangs a G.I Joe sized red sweater from a tree in her front yard for every dead American soldier.

Anyway, periodically, I'm going to go off about various charities that take both money and knit things. Mostly because part of what makes us human is our ability to care for others.