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A quote: “If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking… is freedom.” ~~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
I’ll start with a story …
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The notes were passed from hand to hand. Furtive conversations – snippets in passing, a nod or a gesture.
They became more concerned about workarounds than compliance. Quiet defiance than obedience.
They had looked at the lonely eyes, the tears, the brave face and resigned answer… “Fine” … when asked “are you ok?”
They couldn’t act for themselves, but they knew the first step they had to take with their children. They might not yet be able to do it in the daylight where they were watched and punished.
So at sunset, backdoors opened, and their children came outside to play.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license
Randy Martin Pochel says: People sacrificing there freedom for security will soon have neither
Benjamin Franklin
Dupin says: “Good to see the kids out playing again.”
“That it is. They were going crazy cooped up inside all that time.”
“Me, too. I was tired of playing Monopoly by lantern light.”
I laughed. We were all so stir crazy, but it had been better to stay home rather than go out. “It’s good that the main furor passed us by.”
She nodded, her smile fading while she watched the children. “It’s too bad about Fred, though.”
“It is,” I agreed. “What he did was dangerous, but necessary. Now that the landmines are cleared, the children can play outside again.”
Cameron says: I laffed. Well done.
Navig8r says: Traveling through the Central American mountains, I couldn’t escape noticing the extreme effort required for farming the steep slopes. Houses were all built on the slopes too. I thought any piece of flat ground would be at a premium for agriculture. I was wrong. Even tiny patches hardly larger than a ping pong table had soccer goal posts and the kids were playing. They often lacked shoes and the “ball” was just a wad of something, not bouncy or round. Priorities. These kids have shoes, their ball is round, and not a mountain in sight. But priorities are still priorities.
Cameron says: “You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?” she asked as she sat on the bench.
I nodded absently. “Three tours, countless firefights, lost friends and several times when I wondered if I’d live to see another sunrise.”
The children suddenly got a soccer game going and their laughter filled the air. “Does it make you mad to see them acting like that after all you’ve seen?”
I grinned. “Nope. Them acting like that means I did my job. I’m only mad because it had to be done in my own country. Although I admit that leveling Los Angeles was fun.”
The refugee children seemed bewildered at recess. They’d played well enough during P.E., but the idea of just being turned loose on the playground seemed beyond their comprehension. They’d linger in little clumps along the edges, watching until someone directed them to join the line at the slide, or toss a football back and forth.
Later I found out that our forces had liberated them from a creche, where the Zandari had been raising them to staff the lower ranks of their elaborate social order. These children had been raised from conception in an artificial, programmed environment, where everything had been structured and everyone knew, to misquote the old song, “who he was and what the Masters expected of him.” Our job was to teach them what freedom meant.
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