Insensitive

We speak of, and bemoan, the divisiveness in our country, and we wonder what we can do about it.

And then we see people who should be the very people who work to bring us together being the people who create the divisions.

Take this soldier:

This John Evans is a big deal in the Army, I guess. I mean, a Major General! Wow! Is that better than a General General?  Anyhow, on Sunday, when the news came along of the deaths of Kobe Bryant and his daughter and seven other American citizens that Beetle Bailey Evans here is supposed to be serving, Evans chose to send that text marginalizing those nine deaths.

By the way, you and I are paying him a salary of $15,381 per month, plus housing and benefits and free camouflage clothing.

"Lots of people mourning a basketball player this morning."  As if that's a bad thing. Soldier Guy goes on to say HE will use his time to remember SPC Moore and his Family (sic).

Where did people get this habit of Capitalizing initial letters to stress the importance of nouns?

No doubt about it, SPC Antonio Moore, who was a 22-year-old Army Reserve combat engineer who came from Wilmington, N.C. deserves our mourning, and his family, our sympathy. He died in Syria on January 24 in a vehicle rollover accident. Regrettable, and sad.

But  - earth to Evans - it is possible to mourn this brave soldier, and to mourn "a basketball player" and his daughter and the seven others aboard the helicopter, and to feel sorrow for their survivors.

The United Nations World Population Prospects analysis says that an average of 7,452 people die every day in the US. That's one every 12 seconds.

Every one of those 7,452 had two parents, and every one of them had people who knew and loved them, no matter how glorious or lachrymose their individual lives turned out to be.

And guess what else, Major Doofus? It is entirely possible to grieve for more than one of them at a time!

You would know that if you were a fully-realized person, but your "you're in the Army or else you don't matter" myopic tunnel vision is keeping you from joining the rest of who have feelings for all that matters.

And, most of the time when people say, "I meant no disrespect"...they did.