MEMO TO:
President George W. Bush,
Vice President Dick Cheney
FROM:
Dolph Honicker
Gentlemen:
It has taken all these years for me to come over to your side. Yes, we are engaged today in a total global war on terror. It’s time that we ordinary Americans did something about it and made real sacrifices rather than carrying on business as usual, shopping at Wal-Mart, attending ball games, going on vacations.
During World War II, we kids collected aluminum pots and pans in the neighborhood to build warplanes. I always hoped that mine went into a P-38 Lightning or P-51 Mustang.
Our parents bought $25 defense bonds for something like $18.75. We kids bought defense stamps for a dime. There was a 20 per cent luxury tax.
Sugar was rationed. We added powdered red color to a stuff that resembled lard and called it Oleo.
Since the war in Iraq has lasted longer than the one we got into on Dec. 7, 1941, maybe it’s past time for us to tighten our belts. Gasoline and many other items were rationed then. My dad was a railroad man and drove a 1931 Model A Ford coupe he’d bought for fifty bucks and worked on until the engine purred. He received an “A” ration stamp for his windshield.
Others, who drove gas guzzlers or worked in nonessential jobs got “B” or “C” stamps.
I thought about this as my wife Jeannine and I drove our 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid to Birmingham the other day and got snarled in traffic spilling from the Talladega 500 Race Track. Those folks sure travel in style. There were literally hundreds, maybe thousands, of mobile homes clogging the highway. Some I swear were luxury motels on wheels as large as tractor trailers and must have averaged no more than 4 miles per gallon.
On the highway, our hybrid delivers 48 to 49.9 mpg. But these monsters in front and back reduced us to 45 mpg. Some of them were cute, though. They pulled a small car behind them or had a couple of bikes attached to their rear ends.
Since you, Mr. President, noted our addition to oil, the first thing to do is to declare a moratorium on NASCAR races where it’s not just the racecar drivers who burn up fuel, but those monster mobile homes. After we “win” in Iraq, it’s back to racing. I’m convinced this could save us from building a nuclear plant.
Gasoline ration stamps for cars and SUVs, rewarding the high mph vehicles and punishing the low mpg vehicles, could get us on the fast track to energy independence. People might try car pools or even mass transit. No more moms driving SUVs to the store for a loaf of bread and using up more gas than the bread itself cost.
Except for that little blip in 2003 on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln when you announced, under a banner reading MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, that major fighting had ended in Iraq, you’ve been right on the money, telling us suckers that things will get worse in Iraq before they get better. And we buy it.
Just the other day, after the number of American deaths came in for the month at 104, the sixth highest figure for a single month since the war began -- eight fewer than the December toll of 112, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, warned that “there is a very real possibility” of intense combat in the coming months and “therefore, there could be more casualties.”
How can you guys be so accurate in casualty forecasts and so far off-base on the war costs now approaching half a trillion dollars? Since there’re about 16 more wounded troops for every one killed, please bite the bullet and use the extra $4 billion in the supplemental bill Congress passed and you vetoed and get VA hospitals up to snuff.
You put them there, give them the best treatment, especially those who’ve lost limbs, eyes, other organs or have been brain damaged.
I believe you err when you warn that if we leave Iraq, the Viet Cong, I mean al Qaeda, will follow us home.
I know you oppose abortion, but I urge you to abort any further ideas of tripping to the moon or Mars. Just concentrate on getting our astronauts home safely and use the remainder of the budget and brain power to monitor the orbiting information satellites and to tap into means to provide renewable energy.
We once had dollar-a-year men who went to Washington to serve. I don’t expect the heads of such companies as Halliburton and Lockheed to make such sacrifices, but it was a thought.
With our troops spread thin, serving in Iraq another 20 or 40 years to build democracy in a theocracy where tribes have fought one another for 1,400 years, please consider a draft. Mr. Bush, if your twin daughters are drafted, well, that’s the luck of the draw.
Remember, even Lucky Strike Green went to war during WWII.
Sincerely,
An American
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