Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Five Years Too Many

I am participating in March 19th Blogswarm today.

In Memory of All Who Have Lost Their Lives in This War



Nearly 4,000 US dead, and 30,000 Wounded.

Between 100,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqis dead and 4,000,000 displaced.

Almost $1,000,000,000,000 Spent.

No One Left
- The Nightwatchman

"Each one had a father.
There's no one left.
A name and a mother.
No one left.

Each one had a dream, a prayer on their breath.
The world's gone black.
No one left.

On the streets of Manhattan,
a dusty wind blows
letters and wishes,
a girl with a rose.

On the streets of Baghdad,
a dusty wind blows
letters and wishes,
a girl with a rose.

Each one had a father.
There's no one left.
A name and a mother.
No one left.

Each one had a dream,
a prayer on their breath.
The world's gone black.
No one left.

Fire and vengeance
in the New York sky above
stole my angel,
stole my true love.

Fire and vengeance
in the Baghdad sky above
stole his angel,
stole his true love.

Each one had a father.
There's no one left.
A name and a mother.
No one left.

Each one had a dream,
a prayer on their breath.
The world's gone black.
No one left.

I stand out on my front porch.
I look up at the sky.
Will my world go black
in the blink of an eye?

He stands out in the desert.
He looks up at the sky.
Will his world go black
in the blink of an eye?

Each one had a father.
There's no one left.
A name and a mother.
No one left.

Each one had a dream,
a prayer on their breath.
The world's gone black.
No one left.

Each one had a wish.
Each one had a home.
Each one had a name,
a name and a rose."

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

My brother and his wife will be deploying to Iraq this summer. Both are Army pilots.

Anonymous said...

I have no problem with your politics. In fact, I love how you said that you don't support the war, but you do support the troops. I've have never heard anyone word it quite like that :o)

Coffee Messiah said...

1 second of one day is too many, this has been downright depressing. ; (

Nicely done, BTW!

Unknown said...

Beautiful and the Nightwatchman lyrics are a wonderful touch.

Unknown said...

Great post, Mandy. Thanks

Anonymous said...

thanks for stopping by the 'scope earlier... my war post is now up! keep up the good work. hopefully sanity will return to this country soon. peace.

Angie said...

Thanks for stopping by my Bicycle blog earlier today. Very nice post! We seem to have a lot in common; blogoholics, book lovers, Obama supporters, 7 year old drama queens (Mine enjoys Hannah Montana when she gets the chance, but she's mostly dramatic about saving animals and protecting the environment. We cannot throw anything away. :)). I'd like to add you to my blog rolls if that's alright.

Batocchio said...

As the saying goes, one death is a tragedy, a hundred is a statistic, and it can be hard to wrap one's mind around it — presuming one tries. I wonder how some of our leaders sleep at night.

abby - the geek girl said...

I really dig the Obama updates!! I tend to do the same thing on my blog... recently I haven't had as much time to write about politics as I like.

I think this is a beautiful poem to relate back to the topic at hand.

abby - the geek girl said...

err... song... not poem >_>

ConverseMomma said...

The scary thing is that if a republican is in office next election, that number is sure to rise.
And I agree, I am totally against the war, but with an uncle who flies a black hawk, I will always support the troops.
Great Post!

Batocchio said...

One more point — most vets, and most war protesters, are pro-soldier but anti-war. The two ideas go together very naturally, and there are plenty of people who are anti-war who aren't unconditional pacifists. Given the importance of these issues and the rhetorical abuses of our leaders and pundits, these semantics are very important, I'd argue. Most vets and thoughtful citizens I know view war as a necessity at best, requiring a high threshold, and that it's a measure of last resort, not something to celebrate. Additionally, a mission may be bad, but the grunts are just doing their job. I know "pro-soldier, anti-war" is too radical a concept for Norah O'Donnell to get, since she consistently spoke of war protesters as anti-American (nevermind that dissent is profoundly American and one of the key rights the founding fathers fought for) but the "pro-soldier, anti-war" stance has been around in various terms for millennia. Meanwhile, our various imperialist chickenhawks are neither.

Kitty said...

I love the pictures!! Keep em' coming!

danielletbd said...

http://danielletbd.blogspot.com/2008/03/what-do-you-define-as-success.html