I remember the first night of the war

[underpants]

Like much of the Cheney/Bush era the facts were murky. It was March 19th here when it started but in Baghdad it was March 20th.

I went to bed really early for me. At the time we didn't have our daughter yet and had been married for 5 months.

I went to the DC anti-war "this is a really bad idea" march the week before my wedding in the Fall.

March 18th we got the fake-billy-badass W. blustering about the 48 hours for Saddam and his sons had to leave. No one thought Saddam would leave for the most obvious reason - you are going to invade THIS country? - but in the murky world of the dark now non-pulse existance of Dick Cheney they quicksnapped it.... they went in before the 48 hours was over. ~~ if anyone remembers the excuse that was given was that they were moving $1,000.000.000 in flat bed trucks (THAT we could find).


My wife came into our apartment bedroom and simply said, "The war started"

I turned on CNN and watched a tragic era of my country begin. I just layed there for 20 minutes and went to bed knowing that this was a bad idea and I can tell my now 5 year old daughter that I did what I could do.

[PM Martin]

1. I was coming home from work late that night.

And heard it on the radio.

[madrchsod]

2. seems like a really long time ago....

i wonder how many years we`ll have a training army stationed in iraq.

[reggie the dog]

3. I found out and the next morning on the way south on lake shore drive

i saw signs for an anti war rally that i went to with my girfriend and her brother both of whom were from Reunion island in the indian ocean, they got a crash course in illegal protesting in chicago

[Tutankhamun]

4. It was on TV in the teachers' lounge where I taught.

A (Republican) co-worker of mine said, "Wow! We're just rolling on in there with no problem."

"It's kind of spooky," I told her. "It shouldn't be this easy. it's like we're rolling into a trap."

[anarch]

5. I remember

looking at the pictures of Baghdad before the bombs started falling, thinking "that actually looks like sort of a pretty place"

watching the bombs fall on the TV, thinking "wow...nothing quite like this has happened since like September 1939"

shaking my head in disbelief that this is what our world had come to.

[gratuitous]

7. I remember footage and photos of pre-war Baghdad, too

Was it Michael Moore who took the pictures or distributed them? They showed, as you said, sort of a pretty place, not all that different from any other urban area around the world. It certainly didn't look like the snakepit of vipers and source of all that was evil we had been assured for six months that it was. I also remember there was a big stink about how unpatriotic it was to show Iraqis as human beings and how doing so undermined the troops, and was disloyal to President Bush, who was now the personification of the United States of America.

I wonder if Baghdad has more than a couple of hours of reliable electricity per day, or if the power still goes out without warning for hours at a time? Well, the man who tried to kill George W. Bush's daddy is gone, and I suppose that's all that matters.

[madinmaryland]

6. I remember sitting at lunch two blocks from Ground Zero watching CNN

and Wolf "Leslie" Blitzer having wargasms about the start of the war.

:mad:

I have been taking blood pressure medication ever since.

[uncommon]

8. War is great for cable news --

fuckers.