“Being only eighteen years old, I can’t say that I have experienced much in America’s history other than reading about past wars and conflicts in my obsolete high school textbooks. One thing that I can comment about with a general amount of knowledge is how the media today perceives the war. I don’t personally know anyone who has gone to fight in Iraq; what I see of the war is only what the news is willing to supply. Unfortunately, the media recently has not been doing a wonderful job in reporting what is most important about the war.
In the past, the media had represented the war and its several façades by not just showing the politics of it. Soldiers were not just portrayed as soldiers, but as individuals with a story to tell about their strength, their goals, and their dreams. Today, everything has become another statistic to use in politics. The media is more engrossed in the mathematical data and formulating opinions against certain political groups than what matters most about this war: the humanity of those fighting and striving against all odds.
Furthermore, the general public’s interests seem to be pulling away from what is going on in Iraq. What scares me is the fact that I probably know more about celebrities and their lives than what is going in Iraq today, because that is what the media provides. What is even more terrifying are those days when somehow I forget that we are even at war and Iraq just seems to be a part of the past located in my old textbook, but then I’m struck with the cold reality that the war in Iraq is still very much a part of the present and future. The general population needs that constant reminder that our citizens are still thousands of miles away from home fighting for the principles that America stands for.
One of the main reasons that I had joined Take Pride was the fact it is a company that acts as a reminder that this war isn’t just about picking sides in a political battle, but embracing the fact that our citizens are still out in another country fighting and should be appreciated.”
-Adisha Verma, TakePride Artist Outreach, New York, NY