Posted by Atticus on December 12, 2004, at 18:34:05
In reply to Re: Black Blood in the Sandbox.., posted by Jai Narayan on December 12, 2004, at 8:36:43
It's my belief that the people who love war are -- in most cases -- those who've never been within 1,000 miles of a real battlefield. You rarely hear the grunts who've been in the thick of it speak of violent armed conflict in ideological or romanticized terms. My Uncle Frankie parachuted in at the Battle of the Bulge. He was part of the American group of soldiers that linked up with the Soviet forces once Berlin had been taken. He exchanged the American flag he had with a Russian soldier for an enormous red Soviet flag with hammer and sickle. It's still stored at my parents' house. But despite all the hot fighting he saw, Frankie has never once talked or bragged about his wartime experiences. And the exchange of flags had no ideological significance to him at all; the American flag was simply the only gift he had at hand to give a fellow soldier who'd also survived to that moment, and vice-versa. The few times he's mentioned the war, it's been with a tone of utter distaste; he just sees war as killing and dying and surviving. And this contrast between those who haven't been in the cauldron but are all-too-willing to drop others into the boiling pot is essentially the message in this poem. Peace out! Atticus
poster:Atticus
thread:427896
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20041210/msgs/428497.html