ESSAY
2009 HONORABLE MENTION

What About Peace?
Ivy L. McCall
15 years old, Virginia

What about peace?

Let’s ask the founding fathers, because they were obviously  outstanding citizens, with their war
Started over a tariff on tea and their illegitimate slave children.

What about peace ?

Let’s ask President Truman.  Let’s ask him about Far Man and Little Boy.  Let’s ask him about the nuclear testing in Nevada.  About the “drifters” who suffered, American citizens, many of them sterile or dead from the cancer that invaded their cells and poisoned their lives.

What about peace ?

Let’s ask our soon to be ex-president.  We’re we greeted as liberators?  Or will history paint us something darker?  Not such a pretty picture for your legacy, Mr. President.  How is dropping bombs on a country that hasn’t provoked is so different from the terrorist attack that got bought
you your second term?

What about peace ?

Let’s ask our students.  Let’s ask them to do something because it’s the right thing to do, not because they’ll get prize money or extra credit or it will look good on their college applications. Let’s ask all the people who stand by and watch the violence continue every day on the news and find it in them not to care.  Let’s ask our country.  Let’s ask ourselves: is it not our duty, our responsibility as fellow human beings to help?  Could we possibly be motivated by anything other than our own self-interest?  Would we be willing to give up the few meager luxuries we’ve earned to prevent someone from starving?

What about peace ?

I know the answer.  Everyone does.  And despite everything, despite contests and clubs and so-called activists, we are all every bit as guilty as each other.  In this great nation of ours, that has granted us freedom of speech but not of thought, of religion but not of marriage, of press but not of lifestyle, let he who is without sin cast the first stone.