The Children Weep

Light A Candle For
Peace, Tolerance, Understanding
and For The Children - Innocence Lost,
And Future We May Have Given Them!



WAR!

By Flang B. Gemring a.k.a. Dylan Emrys Hand-Boniakowski

War!
You withhold freedom
While concealing
The disturbing
Truth and reasoning

Strife!
You hold back our rights
Eliminate who we were
Give the vulgar aristocrats
Profit at the cost of lives

Battle!
You're only a tool
To manipulate others
To mess peoples' minds
Destroy peoples' families

Antagonism!
You cannot defend us
Against Terrorism
For you are a terrorist
Destroying the world

Destruction!
You cannot understand Peace
For she thinks differently
Respecting peoples' lives
Having a better goal

Wage Peace!

"He that always gives way to others will end in having no principles of his
own." -- Aesop

The Children Weep

By Karen Carlisle

Photos of children assault my dreams.
A child's leg swirls up from darkness,
a flailing hand streams past.
It is a small brown hand
that led a milk goat home.

They float through the air--heads without faces, hands that plead and reach
for me like vines whose tendrils snake
around my neck, choking me into wakefulness.
They float before my eyes still, the flat blank eyes
of children in the streets of Bagdad, Kandahar, Jenin.
Palestinian children huddled together waiting.

After the smoke of bombs, mines, firles, grenades
disappears into the innocent day,
they are left, legions of half-things
inheriting waterless homelands
where love might never root.

The children weep night and day.

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." -- Tacitus, Roman
senator and historian (A.D. c.56-c.115)

The Lie

By Carrie Campbell
Where is the honor our country once knew
Reason lost in the quest for battle
Morality merely cast aside
Men's egos served up with pride
The war machine march's on
The world watching with distrust
Men women and children no more than targets
Too be bathed in a sea of fire
Authors of the war safely far away
Blanketing their families from the horror
Small children eyes filled with terror
So many wounded and dying
The smell of burning flesh all around
What is this hell we have found
Oil flowing with the blood of so many
Bathing our democracy in shame
This war preempted in a fathers name
History shall not be kind
Nor will history hide the lie
There was never a reason for so many to die

"You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is
wrong, no matter who does it or says it." --Malcolm X (1925-1965)

War Wounds

By Jim Bush

Quietly, he sits in his wheel chair
Missing one eye, one arm, and one leg
"Could have been worse", he thinks
"At least I can walk on one leg, use one arm, and see with one eye"

"Imagine losing two eyes, two arms, or two legs"
"Or two eyes, one arm, and one leg"
"Or one eye, two arms, and one leg"
"Or one eye, one arm, and two legs"

"And then there's the worst case"
"Losing two eyes, two arms, and two legs"
"Or would the worst case be losing your face as well?"
"Or would it be losing your Dick?"

"How about losing only your face or your Dick?"
"How would that be?"
"And who decides these things?"
"Who sets it up?"

"I mean, who decides where the shrapnel hits?"
"Who decides what, or whom, it will take?"
"An eye, an arm, a leg, a face, or a Dick?"
"One dead, two wounded, three OK"

He sits there, with one eye, one arm, and one leg
"At least they're balanced", he says out loud
"Right arm, left leg, not so bad"
"Wish I could get back to my unit"

His mother weeps
"At least he's alive", she thinks
His father, arm around her, says, "I'm proud that he did his job"
His girlfriend, sitting nearby, wonders what it will be like

He returns to sitting quietly
The TV is on
The News reports that another Humvee has been hit by an IED
He listens for unit designations and the names of friends

He fidgets in his wheel chair
"My head hurts", he says
He grabs the TV remote
And turns to the Cartoon Channel

He starts to laugh uncontrollably
Courage the Dog is being blown to bits on the TV
He leans forward, laughing
While his family sits back and watches, quietly

GI SPECIAL 4F26: 'Terry Lisk'