I don't know if this being Jersey City vs. Casablanca is relevant to the discussion or not. But I don't think the writer is in a fog either.

I don't see it as a matter of embracing the war, or the warrior. I welcome the writer giving a voice to the human being inside, or alongside in the body of the warrior.

No judgments about war here -- that's a different topic.

Methinks the writer is in a sort of fog because I have seen MANY soldiers standing outside the PATH gates on both sides of the Hudson time and time again.
Why don't I say hello? Because they are carrying automatic weapons and huddled in groups of 5 or more. I see them as extremely threatening...like a Nazi movie.

I think Rome had the right idea...an armed soldier was not allowed inside the city...it was deemed TREASON.

Let the soldiers fight their wars against Terra or Drugs, or whatever. Then they can demand and get the respect of the populace...or they shoot them.
When they come to town here for a night out let them wear civvies.

America voted strongly to end these militaristic adventures...just because a cowardly president refuses to follow through on his campaign promises does not mean that America embraces her warriors.

Armed soldiers don't belong in bars...this isn't Casablanca.

New York Observed -- When Johnny Comes Marching In

New York Times
By HELEN BENEDICT
Published: April 10, 2009

THE other night I was in a literary bar in the East Village, the kind of place where nervous poets, novelists and memoirists read their work to other nervous poets, novelists and memoirists, when in walked a tall, strapping soldier in full desert camouflage.

He said something to the bartender, downed a beer, hitched his huge Army backpack farther up his shoulder, sent a shy grin out to the room and left. Nobody looked at him; nobody grinned back ? I glanced around to check. It was as if an unwelcome ghost had entered the room, a harbinger of bad news we didn?t want to acknowledge.

I know it?s the New York way not to stare. We don?t stare at anybody, celebrities, crazies or ghosts, let alone soldiers. But it bothered me that everybody pretended not to have noticed him, and it bothered me that neither I nor anyone else had said hi or welcome or how are you doing?

I felt a class and political chasm open right there in the bar as I sipped my white wine. Here we were, a room full of writers, students and other privileged Manhattan types. And there was he, a young soldier reminding us that we are indeed at war, but that it?s not being fought by the likes of us.

It?s only too easy to live in New York, particularly Manhattan, and almost never see a uniformed soldier, let alone talk to one. They are a rare sight even in the subway and the streets, let alone in the literary bars of the city. But that young soldier got me to thinking: Is the invisibility of soldiers in New York keeping us out of touch with the fact that we are at war? And is it keeping us out of touch with who soldiers really are and what they really think?

In smaller cities and rural towns all over the country, the war is present because soldiers are. Even in New Jersey, this is the case. All you have to do is hop the PATH train to Jersey City, about an hour from Fort Dix, to find yourself surrounded by soldiers.

In fact, I met a soldier because of the PATH train once. A middle-aged Nicaraguan was sitting next to me on the train, and we began the usual grumbling about delayed trains, which led to a conversation about the economy and the cost of the Iraq war, which then led to his telling me about his son. ?He joined up to get his citizenship,? he told me. ?Now he is back from Iraq and he?s all screwed up.?

I expressed sympathy and I told him that I?d been reading a lot about the war lately.

?I don?t want my son in this crazy war,? he said, pulling his cellphone out of his pocket. ?Call him, please. Tell him not to go back.? And he thrust the phone at me.

A few minutes later, I found myself standing outside on the sidewalk with this man, talking to his very surprised son on his father?s phone. I didn?t tell him not to go back; why would he listen to me? But I did ask him how he was doing. I expected the usual gung-ho patriotism because that?s what I heard all the time from soldiers quoted in the news. But he surprised me.

?I don?t know; I feel weird,? he said. ?I?m completely different. My temper?s changed. My marriage is falling apart ? I?m getting divorced. I?ve forgotten how to be a father. My wife, she?s not understanding because she wasn?t there. I?m going to be redeployed to Afghanistan. I?m scared but I?m going because I don?t know how to fit in here anymore.?

ON the way back to Midtown that same day, I was surrounded by soldiers. We were in one of those quaint, rattle-trap minivans that ferry people from Midtown to New Jersey and back, and behind me a young man was saying: ?Yeah, I joined ?cause all my friends were headed for gangs or jail and I didn?t want that to be me. So I spend a year over there, come back, and they?re all in gangs or jail. There?s nothing here for me. I?m going to re-enlist.?

After that, I began to seek soldiers out and talk to them. And almost every one of them said things I didn?t expect and told me things I didn?t know.

So when I saw that soldier in the literary bar, I had a hard time listening to the next nervous poet read at the lectern. I couldn?t stop thinking that the soldier really was a kind of apparition, a physical manifestation of the fact that we?re at war. A young American in his Army uniform, he was either on his way to kill others in our name, or on his way back from having already done so. This was the uncomfortable if barely conscious thought, I suspect, that made us turn our backs on him.

I?m not saying that New Yorkers are apolitical. Quite the contrary. Most of the people I know here are passionate about politics, especially about the war in Iraq. They have written articles, plays and poems about it, marched in the streets to protest it, voted for President Obama in the hope of ending it. Yet most of them don?t know a single soldier. And because of this, many assume that soldiers and liberal New Yorkers will never be able to talk.

Soon, though, this chasm might start to narrow. With the Iraq war winding down, the economy driving up recruits and the new G.I. bill offering better tuition benefits, soldiers will be showing up everywhere: in our streets and subways, our classrooms and, yes, our literary bars.

I wonder what we New Yorkers will do. Will we continue to ignore them in disapproval or fear? Or will we be willing to greet them and listen to the surprising things they have to say?

Helen Benedict is the author of ?The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq,? which was published this month.