Last Updated on: 4th October 2013, 08:03 am
Could somebody please explain to me why it is that I’m supposed to feel sorry for people who get themselves injured or killed in war zones that they visit of their own free will? I’m not talking about people who go their on business such as those who are there to provide humanitarian aid to the people in whatever country it is, I’m talking about people like
this guy,
who head off to Iraq just because they’re curious about what’s going on there.
Here’s a free tip from me to you. If you want to know what’s going on in Iraq, before you book your flight to check things out firsthand, try picking up a newspaper or turning on the TV. That should give you a pretty good idea of the situation there which last I heard, wasn’t that good.
And here’s a bonus piece of advice for you just because I’m a nice guy. After you’ve done the 17 seconds of research that it should require to rule out Iraq as your vacation spot of choice, call your travel agent and see what the prices are like for Mexico, or some other place where there aren’t quite so many tourist killings and where the worst things you’ll have to deal with are all the foreigners and the lovely tap water. Oh, and who can forget the odd mugging at gunpoint but that can happen to you right outside your own home so really it’s not worth sweating that too much. In fact, the more I think about it, why should you go on a vacation at all? If you want to see people from other countries and experience other cultures, go outside for a few minutes. If you want to drink water that will make you sick and slowly kill you, turn on the sink. And if you want to experience the pure rush that is getting robbed by an armed maniac, loudly count your money while standing near one of those outdoor bank machines and you should get your wish in a matter of minutes.
But getting back to my main point, I’m not sure why it is that we’re supposed to feel bad when some guy who decides that it might be fun to explore the fabulous hiking trails of Baghdad finds himself taken hostage and eventually offed by a group of extremists. Personally, I don’t and I’ve got a good reason for that. His name is
Mark Sokolov.
If you don’t have time to read the story linked above, I’ll explain him to you.
Mark Sokolov managed to survive the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th. He was working in his 38th floor office when the first airliner hit the other tower. He managed to safely escape and did so virtually unharmed. Gee, that was close. But even though he dodged a pretty big one there, Sokolov hadn’t had enough close calls. So what is a man who seemingly wants to get himself killed in the worst possible way to do? If you said go on a family vacation to Jerusalem and walk through the middle of a bomb blast, you would be correct.
For some reason his story made international headlines, not one of which was titled Douche Bag Dad Squanders Second Chance At Life, Kills Family At Same Time. Instead, he was interviewed by just about everyone and he was either treated like a hero or he spoke about his experiences lightheartedly complete with such quotes as “I was obviously a lot luckier last time, This one involved my whole family.”
Does that statement make absolutely 0 sense to anybody else, or is it just me?
But that’s beside the point. It seems to me that if somebody gave me a first chance at life let alone a second one, that I would do everything I could to protect it and treat it like something of value because without your life, all of your other valuables are worthless. What ever happened to that survival instinct that everybody by nature is supposed to have? Maybe some of us were born without one or maybe it’s simply a case of natural selection doing it’s job. But whatever it is, the only thing I’m sad about is the state of the human race as a whole, not the individuals who find themselves in these pickles of their own creation. No, they’re just here to serve as the entertainment while the stronger of mind among us sit back and watch the fun.
