More Thoughts

I'm sitting in a little hotel in Yakima, Washington, tying up a few loose ends after the first day of a high school basketball tournament.

Last night, while watching games back-to-back involving teams I cover, some rather sad thoughts occurred to me.

Here are these strapping young men and women, readying themselves to leave high school in another few short months. They are the picture of health. And with all the talk of war, I wonder what lies in wait for them in the coming months.

With all the talk of war, it's young people barely older than these basketball players who will be asked to fight and, perhaps, die. Not the Donald Rumsfelds of the world. Not the Dick Cheneys. Not even that NASCAR winner over the weekend who said, as soon as he got out of his winning car, spouted off about how we all have to trust our pResident and go to war with Iraq.

I won't tell you my response to the NASCAR dude, other than to mention the gist of it was `Just shut up and drive the damned car.'

I got back to the hotel last night in time to listen to Ted Koppel discuss reports of how Rumsfeld, Cheney et al had drawn up this Iraq strategy in 1998 as part of a think tank. I actually read this in a story by Joe Conason, or someone like him, as far back as 2000. At that time, the writer predicted, there would be a move made against Iraq at some point during the Bush Misadministration, although at that time he felt it might be tabled until the second term.

Not to digress.

I just worry about what's in store for these kids. Economically, they have huge deficits to repay. There won't be Social Security for them, at least not in the way we know and understand it. The price of college for those not lucky enough to land a scholarship is skyrocketing.

And if they're lucky, perhaps one out of the entire field of athletes in this 32 team tournament will become wealthy in their own right. But that's stretching the statistics.

They deserve better than that.

More soon.