Who are the casualties of war?
The nurses who calm the fears of those mortally wounded
with untrue promises of safe return to mother’s breast,
the dry-eyed, brokenhearted medics who fill body bags with
the carnage of senseless human destruction or
the decapitated bodies of boys in their nineteenth year
too green to know how to survive outside the urban jungle.
Who are the casualties of war?
The concert pianist whose missing hands will never again play
Beethoven, the officers who must send good people to die
for that sometimes obscure concept…freedom
or the children who must add single-parent family
to the confusing roles they already play.
Are these the casualties of war? I think not.
The true casualties of war are the complacent who believe
freedom is free, the disruptive who infringe the rights and
block the passage of those who keep open the paths to freedom,
and the ignorant who are too self-centered to realize whose
freedom the patriot’s blood is buying. These are the true
casualties of war because they readily accept all the gifts
of this soil yet choose to ignore their responsibility to
promote, protect and defend the world which provides
them freedom’s opportunities.
