Iraq War Syllogism - 30 Poem by Raj Dronamraju

30

You go to war with the army you have
They are not the army I wanted
They are the army I have been given at this specific time

Life gave us lemons, they are roughly the same shape of hand grenades
We threw their sour leftover taste in the path of those we colonize
Those we colonize, we bully with haste
Move too slowly and you'll find an invading army's numbers thinning out

Shrug when they ask if there are not enough soldiers on the ground
Cast aspersions on the bravery of fighting men
The equipment is the best in the world but the people running it?

We are left with the difference between what personnel we have on hand and those we can't coerce
We are the future of armed conflict so we do not need so many boots on the ground
We still imbue those who are on the frontline with the savagery of wars past
Deliberately blur the lines between civilian and combatant

That's the first vision of an Iraqi desert or a Vietnamese rice paddy taken in by a kid from Wisconsin or someplace like it
They can only relate everything back to boot camp indoctrination
They are different from us, they are not human

And the selfishness of decades past means we'll miss out on the cross section the draft would have given us
Those with college degrees, those whose life in relations to the military are very different
That's a generational difference conscription gave to young men

So now we have those who chose to go into the military
And those feelings might not be reciprocated by top down neo-conservatives
Whose destiny is all tied up in how they view the world
What an incredible insult the way they devalue life - of soldiers, of civilians to further their megalomaniac goals