support our troops

I met Diane Benson, Congressional Candidate in Alaska, about a month ago and was very impressed. But only got to hear her speak as a candidate tonight. Again I was impressed. Diane is a genuine American who has worked hard all her life to get an education and to better the life of her son. Often she and her son have worked hard for our country and for their community. She has the confidence of someone who worked their way through school driving trucks while raising her son. She has the confidence of a woman who worked in the male dominated workers camp on the Alaskan pipeline. She has the confidence of someone who has had to work for everything, being given nothing easily. The contrast with the spoiled brat who inhabits the White House is about as striking as you can get.

Among those who came out for Diane was as diverse a group of Democrats you can find. Avid Hillary supporters rubbing shoulders with avid Obama supporters, both writing checks for Diane and THANKING her for her running. Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney was among the strongest voices supporting Diane with both enthusiasm and a bit of awe. Also there were former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, our next Public Advocate Norm Siegel, Captain Jon Soltz, Veteran of Kosovo and the Iraq War and founder of VoteVets.org, fellow Daily Gotham writer Dan Jacoby, and City Council Candidate Steve Behar (if I left anyone out, please let me know!). I also saw members of two Brooklyn Democratic clubs, IND and CBID, and the current CBID president, Chris Owens, was on the host committee. Quite an interesting collection of Democrats.

Gayle Brandeis is the Bellwether Prize winning writer, the author, most recently, of Self Storage (Ballantine, 2007). This is her stunning meditation on soldiers and loss and the things we throw away.
Please welcome her to CultureKitchen.

A few months ago, Patrick Rogalin, a 20 year old Army Reserve specialist, came home from Iraq to find that all of the belongings he had put into a self storage locker had been auctioned off. All his clothing, all his furniture, all mementos of his life before Iraq, gone to the highest bidder.

My novel Self Storage just came out, so I've been thinking so much about what "self storage" means. How our selves can be so wrapped up in our things. How we often store ourselves away from the world, lock parts of ourselves up. I can't help but see a different metaphor here, though. Our soldiers are coming home to very little to begin with--reduced benefits, meager military pay that often has to be supplemented with food stamps. These young men and women put their lives on the line, and we thank them by denying them treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, by increasing their co-pays for prescriptions. Aside from reuniting with family and friends, they might as well be coming back to empty storage lockers.