Metafilter
reports today on a new project eleventhhourstories
which will "gather true tales of war from the past 100
years from civilians, soldiers and veterans" Many of
the stories have never been told before. Anyone who wants to tell
their story about war can contribute.
Vietnam was horrible. There was no room for Christ there. If he
had been there, we would have killed him. I saw children with
missing limbs and with horrible diseases because of unsanitary
conditions. I was sitting in a foxhole once and a booted foot
came flying through the air and landed next to me. The rest of
the body of this 18 year old Marine was scattered over a 100 yard
radius after being hit with an artillery shell. He was a friend.
-Vietnam
Most of them stop to beg for food, water, cigarettes and medical
attention. We do what we can, but thats not much. Our
supply is messed up and we are short of food and water.
Everything is rationed out...I was sitting there getting ready to
chow down on my MRE (beef stew) when a kid of about 10 walked up.
You had to see him to believe it. It looked like he had taken
shrapnel and hadnt eaten in a month. He looked really
scared as I approached him. I gave him all the food I had and a
bottle of water. He sat down and devoured everything I gave him.
I then gave him my hand, which he took, and walked him over to
the medics. The medics cleaned his wounds and wrapped them.
-Iraq
1991
In Kim Long orphanage, the youngest babies sometimes die of
nothing. It is not always a matter of disease when an infant, in
the long, shaded room where so many babies lie in cribs on bare
wooden slats, dies in spite of the good works of the old nuns. It
is not a matter of starvation, because the old women feed each
one milk from a bottle--milk donated by US military men, more
often than not. I have fed them myself.
-Valley
of the Dead
Get a life, someone cried
Made me want to weep
So many lives lost every day
Victims, scattered sheep
Who cares about them
They carry no currency
What could they mean to me?
-Chicago,
2003
Sheku Monserey witnessed both his parents being brutally
murdered by rebels not much older than himself at the time. He
was twelve. he begged to be killed. Instead, they chopped off
both his arms with rusted blunt machetes. They left him to bleed
to death. Nearby, nearly fifty people were lined up and waited as
one after another's arms or legs were sliced off by drugged rebel
soldiers, more than half of whom were under seventeen years old.
"What kept me alive were my brothers and sisters. At twelve
I became their mother and father." Nothing to eat. No hands
to feed oneself . Images of reality that surpass nightmares that
you wake up into and can't escape. Sounds of dementia and
suffering. Children screaming in the night. A piece of bread to
last four days, if you are fortunate. Running over bodies to
escape. the smell of blood everywhere. No birds singing. Even the
houses weeping. That is how my son explained the first days of
war.
-Sierra
Leonne
Rob is
the founder and editor of the progressive news site robwire.com and is a
frequent contributor to rob.dailykos.com