I'm eight years old.  Even then, I knew the world was full of injustices both large and small.  Horrors gross and minute.  But an image and a metaphor for life's little injustices hit me full in the face on sunny afternoon at the Sunrise Cinemas in Zanesville Ohio.

It was my first viewing of Star Wars.  What would somehow become a touchstone cultural artifact of my generation.  My eyes were boggled, my mind was open.  I was overly chilled by aggressive movie theatre air conditioning.  I had to pee.  Really bad.

But on the screen something unfolded that perplexes me to this day.

The Death Star was destroyed in what I would only be forced to learn later was an underwhelming explosion (thanks George Lucas!).  The droids were shined up.  Big fanfare.  All the Rebels at attention and in their dress uniform.  Big grins from Han, Luke and Leia.  Knowing looks filled with weird sexual tension exchanged.  And then medals strung on the necks of the heroes of the battle of the Death Star.  Han and Luke, all cockeyed grin and optimism got theirs.  Artoo beeps and they all laugh and then boom.  End credits.

But wait. What about the third member of the crew that survived that battle.  What about Chewbacca.  Warrior of Kashyyk.  Co-pilot of the Millennium Falcon.  Shouldn't he have got a medal.  He's not a dog.  He even wears clothes.  Drives the Falcon.  Talks, albeit in another language.  But no medal.

And what did Artoo say that they all laughed at.  Was he mocking Chewie at the end? What did the others all think was funny?

I imagined the Wookie's awkwardness, standing there with no medal while everyone else got theirs and I was bothered.  I later read the novelization of the movie where this oversight was even mentioned with a casual "He had to put it on himself because few space princesses are that tall."  What a cosmic cop out in a galaxy far, far away.......