Standing in Death Searching For Victory

Okay, look now!

Is it the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen? I think so. Look at all the dead bodies. Smell the stench? Just think about all the lives lost and for what? Children are crying in the hospitals and on the streets. Old people are lost and confused by what they have experienced, what they have felt and what they have seen. That pile of rubble was once a home, perhaps not like my home or yours but surely it was a home. No more peace in that home and no more life either.

Not just that town but so many others are now nothing more than a hell created in your name and mine. What? You say you never agreed to have your name attached to such an atrocity. It doesn’t matter what you agreed or disagreed to; it’s done. All those years you tried your best to leave the world a better place than you found it are all for naught now. You stand here in the midst of all this death and destruction now and I’m hoping you are mad as hell. Your identity has been stolen in the very worst of ways. Your name was taken and used to finance and carry out this death adventure. They forged your signature on the check that bought injury and death. God, how can you stand there and look at this without screaming? They did it, but you will for all your life bear the blame. Scream! Do it because you have to to keep your sanity. Demand answers and demand that someone own up to what has been done in your name. Don’t you deserve that much?

You know who did it. You know all the names. No one has to show them to you on an indictment. Hell, forget that. Start right now and let’s get some action here. Most Americans know the criminals involved in this crime. They also see the crime for what it is and they’re mad too. Some of them are embarrassed that they supported this deadly folly so they are hiding. They hide behind the flag but you can bet they still see the carnage. They may act mute but they are not blind. Maybe once you begin to scream and I begin to scream they will scream a little. After all, their name is on the bloody death warrant too.

There is no happily ever after here. There is no fairy godmother. There is no wish to come true. This is a reality that won’t go away with the waving of a magic wand. Death and destruction are a nuisance that way, they must be dealt with no matter how awful the dealing will be. But who’s to do this nightmare of a task? Who will step up and try and make it right? Who will bury the bodies and bless the souls? Will it be the identity thieves? Do the criminals ever clean up the crime scene and bury the victims?

So now you’ve seen the scene, you know the crime and you’ve smelled the stench. What will you do? Will you simply walk away and act as though nothing has happened? You can’t. The smell of death never goes away until the last of the rotting bodies has turned to dust. Sure, you can try to walk away, try to dismiss the stench and try to ignore the whole scene, but there’s one thing you can’t ignore. No matter what you do, you can’t remove your name from what you’ve seen. Your name is right there beside mine and both are written with a bloody pen. Blood stains are difficult if not impossible to remove, especially after the stain has dried in the blazing sun. Maybe we can’t remove our names and maybe we shouldn’t. Instead let’s preserve this and show it to the future. Let’s highlight this torturous mistake so that history will mark it boldly as one more insane time that America became its own worst enemy. One more time when in the name of righteousness, American proclaimed itself above reason and right, and one more time we stand in the middle of death searching for victory.