'the long walk would never happen today-'
the long walk is happening every day. i graduated high school in 2014. four boys i graduated with enlisted in the military. two of them died before their 21st birthday while in active duty. one of them was injured in an ied explosion and honorably discharged in 2018. he took his own life a year later leaving behind his wife and newborn daughter. the fourth served until 2021 when the last of the us troops where pulled from afghanistan. he had pretty intense ptsd and had devolved into alcoholism to cope. two years ago, he was driving under the influence and crashed his car into a transformer. he died en route to the hospital. none of them made it to thirty.
i come from a small town in alabama. there are approximately two mental health facilities not including the ward at the hospital. there are five separate military recruitment centers. every now and then we get a boy lucky enough to make it to college football but most of the boys in this town become cops, mechanics, drug dealers, part time workers or they enlist in the military.
king wrote the long walk as an allegory for vietnam and the way it affected the young men and culture of the time. well, i didn't grow up during vietnam. i grew up during the wars in iraq and afghanistan. that is the lens through which i view this story and as someone who attended the funerals of all four of those boys i can assure you the long walk is happening every day.
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