This poem by the World War I poet Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est, recently made an appearance in my HP 101 class. I had seen it before a year earlier when it was my duty to give a formal analysis of it: meter, rhyme scheme, literary devices used, the whole objective and entirely heartless literary critic's spiel. Something I chose not to share with that class, however, undoubtedly hanging on my every word, was the connection on a personal level that I felt due to my own connections with the military and certain of its personnel to whom I have just waved goodbye as the plane departed for northern Iraq. The following is a journal entry I made upon the subject of war shortly thereafter. The song lyrics apparently randomly interspersed throughout the text come from the Tori Amos album "Under the Pink" which was playing at the time, and were actually written as they were heard with a strangely coincidental timing.

Friday, August 30

...On the up side, my weekend has begun and I can relax for a while before shouldering the burden of calculus homework. Tori Amos' mildly sacrilegious and completely off-the-wall lyrics are about perfect for my mood right now. "They say you were something in those formative years..." I was at the Empire Diner last night enjoying a mocha chocolate smoothie (one free Immune Booster included), when a friend arrived and we toppled gently into conversation, most notably on the army, which naturally progressed to war. As our country is girding its loins and about to plunge once more into the breach, my friends - the third time of note in my memorable lifetime - I really begin to think about how dirty, miserable, and tragic it really is. As Wilfred Owen bitterly pointed out, there is no honor, no nobility in dying for one's country - there is only death. "I believe in peace, bitch..." Pro patria, Horace? I think not. And the thought that many people I know will be sent off to die that ignoble death, and many more potentially sent off should America choose to utilize the selective service system, is one that gives me pause. As long as war remains overseas, we can shut it comfortably away as an unfortunate set of circumstances to be worked out "over there," but when it comes into our homes and our friendships and tears them ruthlessly apart - that is when even the apathetic sit up and complain. "This is not real, this this this is not really happening, hey..." You bet your life it is.

What has America done with its history? We chafed under and finally threw off the yoke of an Imperialist nation that sought to shape our policies, our commerce, our beliefs, our borders, and our foreign relations from a seat of government three thousand miles away. And now we have become George III. When, along the great timeline of history, was it written that America got it right? What right have we to set ourselves up as the paragon of nations and dabble in the affairs of every nation that might not agree? We are at the top because of our military might and a good deal of luck, not because our political system works the best. We are feared, not loved, just as Machiavelli prescribes. Amen for leadership. With our strength inevitably came enemies, but we were too bloated with pride to care. And we profess anger, betrayal, shock that one of them decided to strike back; to have the unmitigated gall, no less, to do it on our own ground. We called them terrorists. What did they call us as our bombs plunged earthwards, reducing homes, families, and traditions to ashes? As our troops marched over their lands, our politicians drew their boundaries, and our peacemakers wrote up their treaties, signing away lives with every stroke of the pen? "Circles and circles and circles again, got to stop spinning..." One day the tables will truly be turned and we will wonder whatever made us think that we, we alone of the 7 billion people on earth, had a clue? Nations are not pies to stick as many fingers in as we can reach. Nations are people, as human as and probably considerably more aware than we. "Make it go...make them go...show me the way to get back to the garden..." Eden was burnt.