WHY I FIGHT FOR PEACE

[proud2BlibKansan]

WHY I FIGHT FOR PEACE

by Corporal Cloy Richards USMC

From http://grassrootsamerica4us.org/CloysStory.html

Because I can't forget no matter how hard I try.

They told us we were taking out advancing Iraqi

forces, but when we went to check out the bodies

they were nothing but women and children

desperately fleeing their homes because

they wanted to get out of the city

before we attacked in the morning.

Because my little brother, who it is my job to protect,

decided to join the California National Guard

to get some money for college and

they promised he wouldn't go to Iraq.

instead three months after enlisting

he was sent to Iraq for one year.

Since he has been home for the last six months,
he refuses to talk to anyone, he lives by himself.
The only person he associates with is a friend of his,
the one other man out of his squad of thirteen men
who made it home alive.

He called me a few weeks ago for the first time
and told me he's having nightmares.
I asked what they were about and
he said they're about picking up the pieces
of his fellow soldiers after a car bomb hit them.

Because every single one of the Marines I served
with, the really brave warriors, even when some friends
and people they looked up to got killed or lost an arm or leg,
they wouldn't cry, they just kept fighting.
They completed their mission.

Every one of them I have spoken to since we got
home has broken down crying in front of me,
saying all they can do since they got back
is bounce from job to job, drink and do drugs,
and contemplate suicide to end the pain.

Because I'm tired of drinking, bouncing from job to job
and contemplating suicide to end the pain.

Because every time I see a child,
I think of the thousands I've slaughtered.
Because every time I see a young soldier,
I think of the thousands Bush has slaughtered.

Because every time I look in the mirror
I see a casualty of the war.

Because I have a lot of lives I have to make up for,
the lives I have taken and
because it's right.

That's why I fight.
Because of soldiers with wounds you can't see.

This poem is one of a series published on the website http://grassrootsamerica4us.org/
which has been developed by Tina Richards, the mother of Corporal Cloy
Richards.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

1. K&R

. . . and bookmarked forever.

[Change has come]

2. Fucking heartbreaking

:cry:

Thanks for the link to your friend's site. Those are excellent pictures in the photo gallery.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. You're welcome

[Erika]

3. Over 2 mil Iraqis have evacuated

The only ones left are the very poor and the hard core. We destroyed a country. W and his enablers can take credit.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

4. Wish the freeper . . .

. . . with the "Peace Sucks" sign could read that.

But, as someone said earlier, there's no cure for stupid . . .

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. There are some

DUers who need to read it too.

[Swamp Rat]

5. k&r

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. Thanks Friend!

Cloy leaves next Saturday for his third tour of duty in Iraq.

[opiate69]

9. Here's 3 reasons I fight for peace...

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. the poetry is always chilling

DULCE ET DECORUM EST1

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares2 we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest3 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 hoots4
Of tired, outstripped5 Five-Nines6 that dropped behind.

Gas!7 Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets8 just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime9 . . .
Dim, through the misty panes10 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,11 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 cud12
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest13
To children ardent14 for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.15

8 October 1917 - March, 1918

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. morning kick

cause this time next week, Cloy will be on his way back to Iraq for his 3rd tour.