The terror at your doorstep
Carolyn Hileman
You finally did it you moved to a good neighborhood, one of those places you only dreamed about places where your kids could walk down the street and not be afraid. You paid high dollar so that your child would get the best education available and it has paid off, your son is a high school football star, he is getting offers from several colleges, his Mom a service member in Iraq and could not be more proud of her son, this is it, the American dream, you sit down to watch some TV while waiting for your son to get home and suddenly you hear a gun shot, you run outside to see your son lying on the walk bleeding to death, You are in Iraq, in a war that is supposed to keep Americans safe, you are patrolling the streets keeping their children safe and you get word, that your son who was supposed to be safe was shot down in front of your house, then you find out that the person who killed your son is from Mexico and that he entered through a border that should have been secure and that he is a known gang member and that he was just let out of jail on weapons charges, he was supposed to be safe, that is what this was all about, going to Iraq, fighting an unpopular war so that Americans could be safe, every American it seems except her son.
I suppose it goes to show that you are never really safe, that safety is really nothing more than an illusion or it goes to show that it does not matter where you live except maybe the White House illegal immigration will raise its ugly head and find you. The typical arguments are going to be it could have been anyone who pulled that trigger, but it wasn't just anyone, was it? Then there is the line of there has been so many stories that have been made up on both sides of the issue why should we believe this one? I don't think the Mother believed it until she saw her son lying in a cold morgue, and I am sure his Dad didn't believe it till he washed his son's blood from his hands. It is a surreal moment when you walk into a morgue, when you are forced to believe that the person laying there will never get up again. You mentally try and will them to move and if you look long enough you actually begin to believe that you saw them move, so you hold your breath to see if the movement might have been you and when you realize it was only you, you break down.
For moments after you question why, then you start to understand that it doesn't matter why it just is and you are the one left to deal with it. His families way of dealing with it is challenging special order 40 to which some have said would not have mattered in this case even though the man who killed their son was released a day or two earlier after being charged with weapons charges because at that point they did not know he was in the country illegally. In some small way they will have made difference if they can get that order repealed but in the long run children will still be gunned down in the streets, parents will be killed and all because we have an open border and people can walk through at any time. The larger picture that a terrorist could come through our border or inside one of the trucks we are now allowing to be driven down American streets seems to pale by comparison to this one families pain.
Didn't we as a nation owe it to this Mother to make sure her
son was safe, she puts her life on the line every single day for our country, she is one of the reasons we can all sleep a little sounder at night and all we
had to do was keep her little boy safe, she wasn't asking that much you know, she even tried to keep him safe herself buying a home in a good
neighborhood, sending him to a good school, teaching him how to be a good person and it still was not enough. One cannot even begin to imagine the pain these
two have endured, every parent will tell you that you are not supposed to out live your children and it is for good reason because you lose a part of you
that you can never replace, and you have to keep reminding yourself that there won't be a graduation, a wedding, grandkids any of the things you looked
forward to before that day. She will have to go back to Iraq one day, and she will have to do her job, but she will do so knowing that even though she is
putting her life on the line daily to keep her country safe it really isn't and it never will be because not one person who sent her there cares to
secure the border and make our country truly safe. It is time we demanded secure borders, safe streets and a real war on terror, the kind that ends the
terror at your doorstep.
ANITA Shaw
says, "My country let me down." It's hard to argue with her. Not only did America let Anita Shaw down, so did California and Los Angeles.
Truth be told, Anita Shaw is being diplomatic, if not generous, by not lashing out in righteous indignation at the massive tragedy she has suffered at the
hands of an indifferent government. Our government: federal, state and local.
Who is Anita Shaw and why should you care what she says? Pull up a chair.
Anita Shaw is a sergeant in the United States Army. On March 2, little more than a month ago, she was serving in Iraq when her CO told her to report to the Red Cross office. It was there she learned her 17-year-old son, Jamiel Shaw II, had been murdered - gunned down exactly three doors away from his own home.
Jamiel Shaw Sr. heard the shots that killed his son; one to the chest, one between the eyes. Jamiel Sr. sprinted down the block, arriving just ahead of the police. The cops found him standing over his son, already dead, still clutching the cell phone he had used to tell his dad he'd soon be home. Now he was never coming home.
But his mother was. Sgt. Shaw was given 20 minutes to pack for a flight out of Baghdad.
Jamiel Shaw was a star football player with
a solid GPA and a bright future. He was the apple of his father and mother's eye; a hero to his kid brother, 9-year-old Thomas. Tom Shaw wanted to be a
football player like Jamiel. Maybe even wear his big brother's number
4. That was before. Now Thomas wants to be "a scientist" so he can "invent a time machine" and go back and save his brother.
Shaw's killer? Police believe they have him - 19-year-old Pedro Espinosa, an illegal alien gangbanger, a killer for the 18th Street
Gang.

