What Dreams

This is an old poem that I had written a while ago. Re-posting it here.

The other day, to reinstate my belief that the right wing conservatives are a watered down version of fundamentalist scum, I watched the so called ‘No Spin Zone’ fronted by Bill O’Reilly. The name of the show is a first grade oxymoron. The only thing you get on this show, hosted on the FOX network, is right wing propaganda spun to look like facts. We all know which way Rupert Murdoch swings, and his number one minion, Mr. O’Reilly is extremely high on the conservative rhetoric. Any man, who hasn’t lost a child, who has never seen war, who hasn’t sent his kids to war, and who supports a President who tried every trick in the book to avoid active duty and also went AWOL, calling a woman like Cindy Sheehan crazy because she rightly denounced the American occupation of Iraq, has to be a total nutcase. The only thing O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and their kind can do is pick on, and belittle patriotic Americans, who have sacrificed their sons, daughters, husbands, and family for an unjust, unreasonable, and a losing war, because someone had to answer the call of duty.

I also watched Fahrenheit 9/11 after that (for nth time), and I put myself in the shoes of the scores of black men, from Flint, Michigan, enlisted and shipped to Iraq. I have lived in Michigan, and not too far away from Flint, and it was easy for me to relate to the predicament of these brave men - men who were born with the cards stacked against them, and yet play their hand with magnanimity only they are capable of.

This is fictitious diary of sorts, of an enlisted soldier, who is a product of fiction as well. But this is how I’d feel, if I were him. The narration is in the first person.

I have dreams,
I’m only nineteen.
At my age, most kids are thinking either about college, or clothes, or parties, or when, and how to get laid next.
However, I have bigger things to worry about.
I was born black, and I live in the wrong side of town.
At this point in time, I can’t afford college, and I refuse to sell drugs.
I can either work for minimum wage, or listen to the nice neighbourhood recruiter and join the army.
I listen to him.
I get drafted for a short stint in Iraq.
They say we are fighting for ‘our’ freedom, by occupying a country that had never endangered our freedom.
But I’m just a soldier, and I can’t, and I won’t ask questions.

I have dreams,
I’m only nineteen.
And I have seen more blood shed in my first week here, than what I have seen in all the movies, put together.
I feel disturbed, and depressed.
My mind is fragile.
In a herd, I’m full of false bravado.
Alone, I’m quite scared.
I take part in my first close encounter shootout.
I kill for the first time. I shed blood.
I also lose my best friend.
I cry myself to sleep 3 days later.

Death hits closer home,
And I lose the last shred of imaginary invincibility I had on, when I left home.
I’m on the edge of sanity.
I run out of prayers,
And I begin missing my parents, and realize how much I love them, and they do me.
I also fear for them, for they may have to do what every parent dreads.
I might be in the next flag draped pine box.
If it happens, won’t my death be in vain? What will we have gained from it?
And then I wonder about my dreams, and what happened to them,
And I’m still only nineteen.