Saturday, April 14, 2012

NON-LIFE THREATENING INJURIES

We h ave all heard the media describe some injuries as non-life threatening.  This is a relative term (life in this context simply means being, clinically, in a state of being 'not dead'.)  How one might describe life can be far more detailed.  Does non-life threatening apply to the father of four, with a wife who relies on his paycheck, who is injured by a bullet in the spine and is a paraplegic who still lives?  Does it apply to the person who uses their hands for their livelihood and has one blown off in a hand grenade attack?

Non-life threatening is really a euphemism for we can't really hold our audience if we describe the many more gruesome injuries than to just brush it all with a single statistic, the number who died.  Gone, we can wipe our hands off that life unless the relatives choose to put up a shout ads Trayvon Martin's parents did to the dismay of many who complained. 

Life is run on odds, law of averages, and chance.  Being in the wrong place, being unprepared for danger, putting one's self in danger by impulsivity, using poor judgment, and many other reasons determine our fate. . Those who believe that God decides everyth8ing for all of us let their lives be ruled totally by chance rather than trying to maintain some for themselves.

As unpleasant as it may be, we cannot think of only the people in the military who were killed, we need to think of war as the ultimate destroyer of lives, especially to those who came back home clinically depressed and suicidal, brain damaged, without limbs, with no means of support, and to a society that has, for all practical purpose, abandoned them.

Don't let yourselves be fooled by the term 'non-life threatening'.  When you hear a casual X# dead and 50 injured, think of how many of those 50 have also lost their 'lives'.

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