Archives for July 2009
A Soldier Tribute from a Cookie-Eating Fatso
By Josh Barsch
It’s the evening of July 4th, and I just stepped out onto my back porch and watched a fireworks display at the baseball stadium a few blocks away. The lights and booms don’t do much for me anymore, but as I get older, I am doing my best to be a good citizen and try to put my brain on what exactly this all means. Especially when we’re at war.
I am a fat, lazy American (those snickerdoodles I was stuffing down my hole while watching the fireworks weren’t helping any). I am 1,000 miles away from my children, voluntarily, on a mini-vacation with my wife, setting up a second home where we hope to spend vacations over the next few years. I’ve bought more consumer-crap creature comforts over the last three days than most people buy in a year. And to top it all off, I work in advertising, where I spend my professional life convincing to buy stuff they don’t really need, and half the time probably don’t even really want.
At the same time, I recognize that there are over 100,000 men and women in uniform serving in war zones overseas who would give just about anything to be …
Josh Barsch founded StraightForward Media in 2001 after a brief career in print journalism. He now lives in the sticks of western South Dakota with his wife Christina, daughter Mia, son Ezra, two dogs Velvet & Holly, and cat Chanceux, all of whom he loves dearly. And four nameless hermit crabs, for whom he feels nothing.