Military Mom #6

WHO WILL BE OUR NEXT PRESIDENT? Politics has taken over the news now. Not much is being said about the war that is raging on. Just last week 5 more of our U.S. soldiers were killed. May we never forget our military over in Iraq and all the territories where fighting still goes on. Statistics now say the total number of U.S. soldiers who have died in this war has reached over 4,000.

 

Like the parable of the “Good Samaritan” – our soldiers are wounded and dying, braving the frontier that needs to be conquered, but now that there is little news coverage it’s like our soldiers are lying by the side of the road waiting to be recognized and aided. Some people march right on past them because politics is too exciting right now. Others have forgotten they are there or close their minds to them. Some appease their conscience by telling themselves that things over there must be getting better, thinking no news is good news. But the soldiers over there are hoping that they are NOT forgotten. Who are the ‘Good Samaritans’ who will DO something to help them during this time? If they were your sons or daughters, you could NOT forget them and might be the only ones they can count on when others have forgotten. Like the ‘Good Samaritan’ who took the wounded man lying on the side of the road, and saw to it he was taken care of, we need to be there for our soldiers until they are home and the war is ended.

"The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak"

by Archibald MacLeish, an American poet 1892-1982

The young dead soldiers do not speak.

Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses:

who has not heard them?

They have a silence that speaks for them at night

and when the clock counts.

They say:  We were young. We have died.

Remember us.

They say: We have done what we could

but until it is finished it is not done.

They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished

no one can know what our lives gave.

They say: Our deaths are not ours; they are yours,

they will mean what you make them.

They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for

peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say,

it is you who must say this.

We leave you our deaths.  Give them their meaning.

We were young they say.  We have died: remember us.

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