135,000 American Casualties in Iraq - Democratic Underground

Gordon25

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Sat Jun-26-04 04:14 PM
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135,000 American Casualties in Iraq

I saw Michael Moore's stunningly powerful film last night. As a Vietnam vet I expected to be moved, to experience grief. I had not expected to come out enraged because I have worked hard since 2000 to inform myself of the truth about the Bush reign of terror. But enraged I was and am.

I didn't sleep last night because I knew what sort of dreams would come. So I have posted here on a few threads, as a way of working through some of my emotions. I was a bit hesitant because I am tired of being told by so many around me that I am over reacting and shouldn't let myself get so emotionally involved. The responses I received from DU members to those posts have been heartening, healing and deeply appreciated. Most of them contained encouragement to continue to speak my truth. I've not started many threads here, but in light of that encouragement, I have decided to share this with all my heart brothers and sisters here.

As I have said in other posts, the most moving moment in the film for me was the young American soldier looking into the camera with that all too familiar thousand yard stare and saying: "You can't kill someone without killing a part of your own soul."

I don't mean to belittle the agony of those wounded and the devastation of the families of those who have died. My heart aches for each of them. But I also believe, from my experience, that the fact that our troops were sent into a war being waged on a basis of lies, will result in 135,000 casualties because of the trauma they will each bring back with them when they are finally returned home.

My physical wounds healed relatively quickly after my return. But thirty plus years later, the emotional scars are still raw. With the love, understanding, and support of my incredible wife, a lot of talented and compassionate counselors and healers, and a lot of hard and painful self examination, I have managed not to become part of the most shameful and under reported statistic from the Vietnam war: more Vietnam vets dead of suicide than died on the battlefields during the war.

I don't know much about poetry, but writing the piece below was an important part of my healing. Given your encouragement and support to continue to speak out I felt it appropriate to share it with you. Please feel free to do with it as you wish. And thank you all again.

And to Michael Moore: Thank you, sir, for having the courage to literally put your life on the line to give voice to very important and unpopular truths at a critical time in our nation's history.

Lunch

He came to lunch with me today,
the Vietnamese boy,
sat at the table on my left,
as he always does,
and my hand trembled
as I tried to eat.

I've never known his name.
Odd, because
he's been around so long--
twenty-four years
on the edges of my dreams,
twenty-four years
a silent presence
haunting the sleepless
early-morning hours
that sometimes snatch me still
too-easily alarmed
from sleep--

Fourteen years, maybe fifteen,
(hard to tell with all the blood),
beatified with fierce pride
of new manhood,
childhood innocence
burnished by war
to a hard
metallic sheen.
I've come to love him,
this boy so like myself,
but still
my hand trembled
as I raised my cup to drink--

He didn't eat,
(he never does)
Just watched me
(as he always does)
never speaking,
watched me
silent through his pain--

Silent since that dark
and early-morning hour
twenty-four years ago,
jungle-dark and early-morning hour
when he cried out in warning to his brothers
as we lay tense and trembling,
he and I,
trapped in bloody embrace
in the fear-kissed dark
of the killing field,
cries out again
in warning
and in pain
as I put one hand over
the hole in his gut
to stop the blood,
one over his mouth
to stop the cries--

He writhes,
twisting from my touch,
thrashes in shadow
as I reach again
to silence his cries,
our tortured dance
masking sounds
of his brothers'
advance,
painting us as targets
in the dark--

And the
hiss-whispered order
flung with desperate urgency
from the darkness
on my right:
"Cut that slope’s throat!
Now!"

Shadow-fractured moonlight flows
the cutting edge of knife I draw
with bloody hand.
“Please,” I whisper, “Don't”
lift my hand (“Please!”)
from his lips
(“Please don’t!”) cries
erupt anew
and I raise the blade
and choose --

He's never cried out since,
nor laughed,
this beautiful manchild warrior.
He simply watches me,
like at lunch,
trying to talk, to chew,
to swallow.
No longer seeking escape.
Trying only
to control the trembling--

He came to lunch with me today,
and I don't mind so much any more.
Still,
I wish I knew his name
so I could set him free--

You see
you cannot kill someone
without becoming jailer
to their soul--

Gordon25