I heard someone say,
“Don’t you know there’s a war going on?
Yes, I know and I don’t know.
This veteran doesn’t recognize it as real somehow.
Sure, we nightly see soldiers skirting in and out
along walls, carefully entering empty buildings
with rifles at the ready.
We hear shouts. We hear shots.
Humvees speed along.
Some are blown up. Smoke. Flames.
The dead, if they can be found, are counted.
How many this week, this month, since the invasion(s)?
Civilians, crazy with fear, run with gurneys
wheeling wounded.
Some are dragged, some carried.
TV news cameras have gory details to spare.
Bombers drop death packages. Carnage scatters.
Yes, I hear and I see there’s a war going on –
but it’s over there. And it’s not over over there.
I’m here. Safe, I think.
Indifferent? God help us. Forgive our aloofness.
It’s real, pathetically real, for the parents, siblings,
spouses and children who worry at home.
When might the cruel word come to the door?
We dare to ask who the enemy is.
We’re fighting an ism, our leader says.
Within the security of our own comfortable Green Zone
we read, we listen, we watch out of guilt and obligation.
The honor roll of the dead moves me most.
How young they are. Someone is crying for them
even as their tender, innocent faces are imprinted on my soul.
I am not alone in the dilemma of how escape can come.
The mission (whatever it was or is) will not be accomplished.
Defeat has a bitter taste.
Will Johnny come limping home? Never come home?
Lord, what do we pray for?
I was proud of my medals sixty years ago.
I came home with optimism and hope,
satisfaction for my personal mission accomplished.
