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The Price of War
(in the style of Cal Trillin) This is not meant as great poetry, just a lament:

For Democracy we fight, they say, a noble and righteous scheme.
But the Iraquis tell us to go away, they don't share our dreams.
With "shock and awe" the world looked at us, its how we fought our war.
Now they look with disgust at who we voted for
They sent him out to fight without armor on his truck.
In this war you roll the dice, and then you pray for luck.

We claimed that there were weapons in a secret hiding place
We couldn't find the weapons, it's a people we displaced.
He served his time,obeyed his boss
but in the fine lines they define "stop-loss".
So we wiretap our phones to save Democracy
and in order to level the playing field, we torture the enemy.
He never asked to serve his time for oil in the Middle East
But every night men pray in vain for the world to break out in peace.

Scrambled brains and phantom limbs, his souvenirs of war
But we won't pay to care for him, we don't need him any more.
Or they ship him home in a cold steel box and no one takes the blame
But it's the fatherless that feel the loss, while our nation bears the shame.
She takes out photos of her wedding day, that night she gave birth to twins.
But this is where his story ends, and a single mom's begins.

He's pictured in uniform with stripes upon his sleeves
No husband left to keep her warm while we "shop" to beat the enemy.
His son sleeps with an unused baseball bat but never played the game
and he wonders why they tell him that it is "terror" that's to blame.
A wartime hero with a purple heart in a brand new body bag
but it's the little girl whose broken heart lies beneath an American flag.

It has been five years since this war began
Now they fuel new fears about Iran.
Al Queda and the Taliban, don't forget that They're our foes.
We took our eyes off Afganistan, the land where poppy grows.

Dear Jill ~

It's wonderful to see you back here.

Your very-real lament is profoundly true, deeply sad, and amazingly current. Thank you for giving words to this grief and sharing it with us. I feel exactly the same, but could never have written this... nor for my lack of feeling, but my ability. As we were told to "shop to beat the enemy," the war didn't come at a discounted price; but those who have been doing the actually fighting have. I can see you know a lot about how all of this with its many layers has been unfolding.

Thanks.


Love,
Lizzy

Hi Jill
You did it. You are brave.
Now for the comments, which is why you posted this.
There are lots of good images here. For me there is too much. It would appeal to me more if either it focused on the personal or the political but not both mixed together. To have the impact it merits there needs to be less of it, or it needs to be tightened up. Hope that makes sense. I don't usually offer advice not feeling qualified to do so, but have tried in your case because I encouraged you to come here. As I said elsewhere, this is only my opinion. Feel free to ignore it.

Damellon may have a point, Jill. For me, they're inexorably all mixed up with each other, anyway. By including all of it, for me adds to its power... because it becomes not a political rant or a personal rant, but a lament that brings the political reality to the personal... and the personal reality to the political. Our soldiers are sold bills of goods regarding the personal, and then become entrapped in the political that got them there... then, with their most dire of personal needs, they get slapped in the face with the political.

For me, it works the way it is. Perhaps, Damellon or others will have some concrete suggestions to define it more one way or the other that works. The tragedy of it, though, is that they have been hopelessly entangled because of displaced political and personal priorities of those at the top. The way this is done really brings that home for me in the clearest way you could hope to look at a quagmire.


Love,
Lizzy