It's just.... that day, a stranger-soldier shattered any indifference about war....
Giving truth not a comforting lie about what we're capable of.... and the consequences too of course....

life as stories of violence, torture....
of dreamlessness....
of boys killing boys....
of hellish flashbacks and oppressive realities....

> kabLe < Truth....
To be protected at all costs...
"By a bodyguard of lies..."
Fucking travesty...
This New World Order demands sacrifice...
And sacrifice it shall receive...

Yes...
Yes...
Demanding its pound of flesh...
Sending children to war...
Then dragging them back....
barely alive >
Dead >

Caskets...
"TRANSFER TUBES..."
Concealed by the American flag...
Rivers of privately shed tears...
Embargoed...
>>
>>

< vOyA > Lance Morrow.... Times writer, author....
His most recent book, EVIL: An Investigation....
where he tells the story about a man he met at a political luncheon in Washington in late 2001. An old academic talking of war, his service in WWII....

"the necessities of war"....
September 11 still on everybody's minds....

The academic, a young rifleman back then,
in no-man's land with his squad....
captured eight young German soldiers near a river....

"They were little more than kids,
16 or 17 years old."

The dilemma.... what to do?
Too far from American lines....
too dangerous to keep them alive....

Simply, said the old man,
"...we could not let them go."

So, those eight soldiers were made to face the river....

"Then we went down the row and shot each one
of them in the back of the head....".

The Germans' obedience so surprising to him....
The battle-logic winning....

> kabLe < I can't imagine taking someone else's life...
Putting a gun to a stranger's head...
And squeezing the trigger...

I've seen grown men cry over their own savage actions...

A Vietnam Vet...
Weeping...
Like a child...
A hollow pit of remorse...
Haunted by the ghosts of soldiers who never made it home from the battlefield...
Those poor bastards...
"Just following orders, Sir..."
Scant comfort as they dig the bayonet in...
deeper >> and deeper >>

< vOyA > And.... here we are again....
War Noir the master trickster....
The ultimate demonic reality....

The Dead.... the Wounded....
the absolute horror of the killing fields....
Blood-red and flesh-coloured....
stark as freshly-flailed bone....

And still....
the dreamy desire to believe in
"the possibility of an Optimistic Age"

Some day soon....
would be nice.

< to be continued.... of course >