Remote Control

Remote Control
Sandy was humping in his brown and tan camouflaged fatigues
with an 80 + pound rucksack, his 16, ammo, helmet, heat, sweat
and a television set on his shoulders where his head would be.
His whole company had television heads,
but sometimes the news would say, all's quiet on the western front
"Stay the course" and they knew that was a lie.
Touchtone an IED killing and killing and killing ad infinitum.
TV heads had an incredible 140,000 plus channels
with satellites beaming that "The war is lost"
instead of from the fear ridden embedded news
that would only say "We are winning slowly"
instead of telling the people the truth.
Another TV head was in high definition
but soon red blood that looked real, "was real"
started dripping down the screen on the new blue carpet,
his wife began to scream at her husband
"To change the channel."
The Armchair General grabbed the remote and "changed the channel"
only to find another TV head in Germany
and a picture of his white amputated legs.
His wife was still cleaning up the blood
when oozing blood from the mangled legs
dripped two big drops of "thick dark news" on the back of her head.
Before she noticed, her Armchair General
grabbed the remote and "changed channels."
A picture on the TV head showed a soldier
showing pictures of his wife and kids back home.
His wife let out a scream
as two military men were knocking on the door.
Marie opened it and cried,
"It's Sandy, isn't it? Is he still alive?"
Her two children stood behind her
waiting for the answer.

GI SPECIAL 4J6: 'Remote Control'.pdf