Dumbfounded at hero’s welcome for Buju Banton
THE EDITOR, Sir:
EVERY DAY, for the past several years, at least one chartered plane carrying US soldiers heading home from active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan has touched down at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport.
And for every flight at the airport, volunteers in the ‘Welcome Home a Hero’ programme have gathered to enthusiastically greet the returning soldiers.
In 2005, after spending almost a year in combat in Iraq, I was returning home for two weeks of rest and recuperation from active duty, and I was greeted by the volunteers after touching down at the airport.
I was given a hero’s welcome when I came through the airport in Atlanta, and it was an uplifting and emotional experience. It is an experience that I’ll never forget.
However, I don’t see myself as a hero, but someone who was doing his duty. For me, the real heroes are the soldiers who never returned home from war.
So when I read a few days ago that dancehall-turned-reggae superstar Mark ‘Buju Banton’ Myrie was given a hero’s welcome at the Norman Manley International Airport in Jamaica, after spending eight years imprisoned for drug trafficking in the United States, I was shocked, saddened, and dumbfounded.
Editor, how can a convicted felon returning from prison be welcomed home like a hero? How do you call a convicted felon a hero? Is this not insulting, shameful and disgraceful to the combat veterans who gave of themselves until nothing was left?
I couldn’t fathom how a convicted drug trafficker who brought shame and disgrace to his country would be given a hero’s welcome, like a soldier returning from combat. Indeed, I have to say that I am living in a strange world, because any and everybody is a hero.
How do you juxtapose and justify a convicted felon returning home from serving time in prison and a combat veteran returning home from a war zone, and both of them be seen as heroes?
ANTHONY PANTLITZ