this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war
we love and support our troops, just as we love and support the Iraqi people - without exception, or precondition, or judgment
we have no sympathy for the devil.
we acknowledge the power to act that is in us
image and poem below the fold
(RubDMC's daily intro)
Patriot Guard member George Davenport bows his head as he stands vigil with the hearse for Specialist Dustin Donica during his funeral in Houston on January 8, 2007. Donica has been widely reported in the US media as the 3,000th American solder killed in the Iraq war. REUTERS/Richard Carson (UNITED STATES)
Rep. Bette Grande, R-Fargo, clutches a soldier teddy bear while testifing at the Capitol in Bismarck, N.D., on Monday, Jan. 8, 2007. Grande is the prime sponsor of legislation that would bar protesters from coming within 300 feet of a soldier's funeral. The bear's clothes are made from the uniform of Marine Sgt. Bryan James Opskar, 32, of Moorhead, Minn. Opskar died in July of 2005 when a roadside bomb exploded while he was on patrol in Iraq. (AP Photo/Will Kincaid)
An Iraqi policeman stands guard while others load a coffin with the body of a dead relative onto a car in front of Baghdad's Yarmouk hospital morgue, Iraq, Sunday, Jan. 7, 2007. Bombings and shootings killed at least 14 people across Iraq on Sunday, as Iraqi troops waged a fresh battle to oust militias and pacify the capital. (AP Photo/Samir Mizban)
Losses
by Randall Jarrell
It was not dying: everybody died.
It was not dying: we had died before
In the routine crashes--and our fields
Called up the papers, wrote home to our folks,
And the rates rose, all because of us.
We died on the wrong page of the almanac,
Scattered on mountains fifty miles away;
Diving on haystacks, fighting with a friend,
We blazed up on the lines we never saw.
We died like aunts or pets or foreigners.
(When we left high school nothing else had died
For us to figure we had died like.)
In our new planes, with our new crews, we bombed
The ranges by the desert or the shore,
Fired at towed targets, waited for our scores--
And turned into replacements and woke up
One morning, over England, operational.
It wasn't different: but if we died
It was not an accident but a mistake
(But an easy one for anyone to make.)
We read our mail and counted up our missions--
In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned about in school--
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen.
When we lasted long enough they gave us medals;
When we died they said, "Our casualties were low."
They said, "Here are the maps"; we burned the cities.
It was not dying--no, not ever dying;
But the night I died I dreamed that I was dead,
And the cities said to me: "Why are you dying?
We are satisfied, if you are; but why did I die?"
Note: anniethena’s diary from yesterday is here. anniethena and I are alternating in posting this diary daily until RubDMCreturns on January 14, so look for one by anniethena tomorrow.