John Cory | About War

[WilliamPitt]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/100204W.shtml

About War
By John Cory
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Friday 01 October 2004

Slogans -- that's war for most folks. War is Hell. Support The Troops. Uncle Sam Wants You. Yellow ribbons and candlelight vigils. War.

Listen friend, war, is electric. It's a jangle of short-wired nerves; raw blue sparks that jump the gaps of politics and twist the ignition key of survival. War is living fast, hard, and furious, life between the teeth. You are never so alive as when you're about to die. War is a five-and-dime store of friction toys and cheap tin thrills. War, is all the power of heaven accessed through the front door of hell.

War is a mad minute, sixty seconds of Godhood: let there be light in the rocket's red glare and the Zippo flame of razed hootches. God is an amateur who took six days to create the earth, but a grunt with a radio and artillery and air support is true holy power in a fiery obliteration of inhabitants and geography - all in less then six minutes.

War is weather. Sometimes so hot, you have to chew a hole in the heat and swallow, just to get a breath of fresh air. And sweat that drips from the leaky faucet of your pores and into your eyes; sweat that scalds and blinds. So hot you could have lunch with the Devil.

And there's the rain, day after day and night after night. Warm rain, muggy rain at first, slick oily droplets skidding across your skin in a muddy film that never refreshes. Then night rain, dark rain with a chilly breeze that crawls inside your fatigues and pools around your ankles and crotch, and quietly peels away the layers of your wrinkled soggy flesh.

War is solitaire. Humping, marching, moving or standing watch, a soldier packs a rucksack, weapon, ammo, and thoughts. Always thoughts. The only retreat allowed in war is the retreat inside your own head. Eyes are on the terrain while radar sensors process the physical world, clicking and categorizing shapes and shadows. But the mind is crowded with another world and a cast of thousands. It's all there, living in the past and living in the future, while praying to survive the present.

...more...

[WilliamPitt]

1. .

[stellanoir]

2. My primary wish and prayer. . .

is that the whole world could agree upon just one truth. . .

that to ever hurt another living thing, resolves absolutely nothing and in the grander scheme, results in only more violence.

war should be eternally banned.

silly me.

[FlemingsGhost]

8. When we stop hurting ourselves ...

we will stop hurting each other.

[TahitiNut]

3. "The only retreat allowed in war is the retreat inside your own head."

Very true. Sounds like he's been there.


On edit: Yup.

"There is no morality in war. Morality is the privilege of those judging from the distance. War is only death and destruction, regardless of which scripture is quoted."

This is essential to comprehending anything close to what it's like. War is like a party, and morality is like the booze ... and it's BYO folks. You sure won't find it there. If you can only depend on others to provide it, you're shit-out-of-luck, fella.

Know it. Believe it. Take it to the bank.

[WilliamPitt]

4. .

[Vickers]

5. "War is the tool of small-minded scoundrels who worship the death..."

"... of others on the altar of their greed."

"War is eternity jammed into frantic minutes that will fill a lifetime with dreams and nightmares."

Powerful stuff.

[WilliamPitt]

6. .

[FlemingsGhost]

7. Damn ... Cory can write, huh?

Thanks for posting, Will.