this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war

we love and support our troops, just as we love and support the Iraqi people – without exception, or precondition, or judgment.

image and poem below the fold

A man cries next to his father’s body, Raad al-Hayali, during a funeral in Mosul, 390 km (240miles) north of Baghdad, October 16, 2006. Gunmen killed the media director of the education department, Raad al-Hayali, on Sunday night in Mosul, police said.
REUTERS/Khaled al-Mousuly (IRAQ)

Survivor
by Vijay Seshadri

We hold it against you that you survived.
People better than you are dead,
but you still punch the clock.
Your body has wizened but has not bled

its substance out on the killing floor
or flatlined in intensive care
or vanished after school
or stepped off the ledge in despair.

Of all those you started with,
only you are still around;
only you have not been listed with
the defeated and the drowned.

So how could you ever win our respect?–
you, who had the sense to duck,
you, with your strength almost intact
and all your good luck.
– – –