Something to chew on for Memorial Day...

Wilfred Owen

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Yes, I do support the troops. I support them enough to want them off this fool's errand we are pursuing in Iraq and safely back home. Iraq, like World War I and Vietnam, never should have happened.

One thing I no longer support, however: the "Pottery Barn Theory." No poor kid who joined the military so that they could go to college should be forced to "buy" what George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their gang of chickenhawks broke. If there were any justice in the world, all these bozos would have to either go to Iraq personally to clean up this godawful mess, or their children. But there isn't. So end this. Yes, we will again have the "paper tiger" reputation to live down. Yes, it will be "cutting and running." But is there honor in taking more and more children and feeding them to the Moloch-like maw that is the Iraq war?

End this. Now.