"Over 500 American soldiers - average age, 19 - have died in Afghanistan (the forgotten war) and Iraq, all of whom came home in "transfer tubes" free of any media coverage....

"Thousands of civilians have died in both countries (we'll probably never know exactly how many, as the Army has stopped counting)." < Nick Marroni, Mobylives.com >

> kable < I have this vivid image in my mind's eye...
>> It still haunts me...
With its sickening and sobering reminder of the true price of patriotism...
It was during the GOP demonstrations in NYC...
An exhibit titled "Eyes Wide Open..."

So simple...
So fucking stark...

This slab of endless, urban concrete...
Empty soldiers' boots...
> Spaced apart >
Tagged...
That's right...
With white cards...
The kinda tag you'd see attached to the rigormortis toe of a corpse...
No name...
Another disposable, fucking John Doe...

Departed in blurs of star and striped glory...
Returned in unmarked caskets...

I wanna cry when I taste their sacrifice...
When I taste lives...
Unlived....

< vOyA> One hour after the ANZAC DAY PARADE,
George Street, Sydney.... 2001

He seemed calmer....
This lonesome old stranger in the street....
No more shouting. And the people had stopped looking.

I asked him if he was okay. Watching that fleshy face of his,
all flushed and worn. He nodded finally. Not looking at me.... just down at his shoes.

"I don't know where I was last night," he said....
"Nothing makes sense to me anymore."

"It'll be okay," I almost whispered.

"I was a soldier once....
Look at me now."

> kabLe < I'm thinking...
Born On the Fourth of July....
Damn that Oliver Stone...
>> And his crippled army of humanity >>

Badges of fucking shame...

Damn those that send them off to war...
Packing up their fucking troubles in an old-kit bag...
Damn those who write their generations' epitaph...

And damn us....
For being unable to look-them-in-the-eye when they return...
Shattered and torn by the horrors of someone else's war...

< vOyA > In that deserted city street.....
Ticket-tape remnants just everywhere....
I stood alone in Sydney's golden light....
the pride, the silent fear and grief that haunted everybody that day as stark as the old soldier's misery....
of his hopelessness....