On the war

[nadinbrzezinski]

Note... many years ago pieces like this were commercial... but they are not any longer. This was inspired by Mike Malloy running the first six minutes of sound last week, as part of the war amiversary

I wanted to make sure that this was edited, somewhat, before postinmg (and sending to Mike of course)

The View

By

Nadin Brzezinski


The bombs exploded around me.
The sounds in my ears are almost unbearable.
The crimson and oranges are almost beautiful, as if they were flowers in the middle of the night. The view from the camera viewfinder is carefully centered. I know that this almost surreal image is going straight to my viewers, who are at home sipping coffee, perhaps even taking bets on how long the war will last? How many of those bastards realize what is going on? Not many, and that is the damn truth. Most of those bastards never cared about the facts that led to this insanity, just about cheering the home team. They swallowed the fear, and took on the quest as if it was their own. Reality is, those bastards will not sacrifice a, less of all their comfort. It is a game...and they have money riding on it.
I know that my viewers care not that a young child died. This was a young kid that I have never met or even seen. It was a young kid that was at the beginning of her life. This life was cut before she realized that life could be treasonous. Her deadeyes stare into the empty sky. Her empty gaze asks why. Her eyes don't care that a young Marine has crossed the line of departure, fear gripping his soul as he grips his rifle. Those back home don't care that this Marine will not see the coming day, since his life will end, just as the life of that young child. His eyes will stare into the sky, asking why.
War is hell...
Yet people make bets. Kill them, kill them all, we hear. I film this, trying to remain dispasionate. I'm supposed to be incapable of seeing their pain, smelling their burning flesh, seeing their questioning eyes. Yet, here I stand, behind a burm...the camera rolling as flowers of fire blossom, and thinking, this is indeed beautiful. But just for a second.
A young Lieutenant orders his platoon off their transport. His troops respond to his orders as they have always trained. They do as they were trained, since their brains cannot afford to understand the fear, or even accept it. Before the night is over, the Lieutenant will lay on the ground, his right leg missing, the medical report will say traumatic amputation because of a land mine...his brain will say my life as I know it is over.
The medic who will treat the Liuteneant will experience the hell that is to find a femoral artery and stop the bleeding. He will see the wide open eyes of a dead marine, now lacking any life. The Medic knows that this is but the first time he'll hear the blood curling words screamed by an injured troop outside a simmulation: MEDIC!
It is a nightmare.
It is a nightmare that nobody nobody is ever ready for.
No amount of training prepares those troops for this.
No amount of training gets people ready to kill or be killed, even if nobody realizes the horror.
The horror comes back in the still night, when Warriors go to bed and see the faces of the dead and the injured.
Yet the crowds back home cheer on. They don't have anything at stake. It is only the poor and the disenfranchised that fight. It is only the stupid who join. This is how those fucks see these troops. These troops are disposable, and surely lack a face, a life or a family. It is easier that way.

***
The Red Cross Medic covers the young body, deadeyes, brains splattered all over the floor. The blanket was her favorite blanket. Her father stands silent by her side. He can't speak, his face turns towards the sky. "Why God, why?" He pleads, his plea as old as war itself. He does not care why those bombs fell on his roof. He does not care who was right or who was wrong. The medic turns and meets his red eyes, from tears, from pain, from hate. He's lost the flower of his life...
The explosions are like flowers in the night...they are taking bets back home. They don't see his pain.
***
The artillery piece reels. A round, one of many, belches out of its mouth, as if this was a demon, or a dragon. This mythical creature spits out hot metal and fire. We never see the results of its landing, on the other side. We are not allowed to do that. All we ever see are the orange crimson flowers.
A woman cries out to the sky, "why god, why?"
Her home was demolished by a couple rounds. There is a pair of legs under the ruble. The broken body is now flat. Blood, the texture of thick sirup, slowly makes its way on the gray cement, flies coming down to lay their eggs on the rotting bodies. "Why god, why?"
***
Sick people scream and holler as if this was a video game.

***
A young woman sits by a corner in the bar, covering her ears with her hands. While men and women holler every time a flower blooms over that distant skyline on the T.V. She does not know it yet, but her husband will make it home, inside an aluminum crate. He died his eyes fixed at the sky, and she will scream why God why? They will continue to scream excited for the empty victory. She will live with her pain. They will not care, as his body is laid down onto the cold ground, a flag draped coffin that they are never allowed to see.
Another woman sits at home, as the phone rings. Her husband was gravely injured, and she needs to leave. She feels the cold grip of fear overcome her. The two people in her home are grimed faced, this is not the last of the casualty notifications they have to still make.
A young boy lays on the ground. His arms and legs shattered, and a pain nobody can even imagine. He wishes he were dead...he wishes that his god would listen to his screams and would just take him. Yet here he lies, unable to do anything. He is unable to move, and unable to speak.
This is the cost that we are not willing to see.
The flowers are still pretty.
The horrors they bring are too horrific.
***

He lays down on a urine soaked bed. Rats gnaw at his bandages, and cockroaches crawl all over him, and the smell is far from noticeable any longer. Why should he? They promised they'd take care of him. He's lost all, his career, his wife and his leg. They don't care. It does not matter. He reaches for the gun, and cocks the hammer. He knows what he has to do, and knows that most will not understand. They will even call him a coward...he cocks it, and pulls the trigger. The last he sees or hears is a beautiful flower, blooming red and orange for the last time.
She was buried in haste, with the rest of her family in a mass grave, wrapped in her favorite blanket.
The woman still cries to the sky, "Why God, why?"
The house was rebuilt, but her life and family were destroyed.
The young boy is now older, wiser and able to move thanks to the charity of others. They gave him new metal arms and legs. He can walk, when the pain does not overcome him. He can write, yet he knows he's a monster missing the ability to live.
The medic sits at home, waiting for orders.
Deployments are now a way of life.
His wife still waits for him, but he can't even start to describe all he's seen. She does not understand, and his distant eyes are all he now has for her.
They still holler burn them, kill them? Destroy them!
The poor wretches of the land have paid the price. It is the least among us who have gone and done this. We are responsible.