“Look,” she says, “There’s another one of those yellow ribbons.”
Suddenly–and could it be he’s just imagining it?–there is an angry man next to him, dark haired, hatless, young enough to be a Vietnam veteran. “Who’s making a lot of money?” It’s as if every thought in his head has been overheard.
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“Yeah, go back to Russia!”
And for one single instant in a frigid parking lot, two Americans face each other in blazing hatred.
He waits until he is back in the car with the doors safely shut and the engine running before speaking to his wife. “When did all this start?” he says. “Whose idea was it? Why yellow, what the hell’s it supposed to mean?”
“No, no, no,” says the talk show host. “Just regular nuclear warheads…”
Sorties, surgical strikes, degrading the enemy’s ability, collateral damage; even human beings have trouble understanding language like that. “Some of these pictures are very graphic,” Connie Chung warns. “Young children may find them upsetting…”
