A TRUE WAR STORY

If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted

or if you feel that some bit of rectitude has

been salvaged from the larger waste

Then you have been made the victim of

Tim O’BrienThe Things They Carried

a very old and terrible lie

Then you have been made the victim of

Mushrooms have traditionally been associated both with life and death, food and poison, making them a more powerful symbolic connection than, say, the “cauliflower” cloud.

now the common symbol of the atomic age.

In 1946, the Operation Crossroads nuclear bomb tests were

described as having a “cauliflower” cloud but a reporter present also spoke of the “mushroom”

en. wikipedia.org/wiki/mushroom_cloud

I hate war as only a solider who has lived it can

its brutalityits stupidity

only as one who has seen

General Dwight D. Eishenhower

I think a curse should rest on me —

because I love this war.

I enjoy every second of it

Sir Winston Churchillletter to a friend

I know its smashing and shattering

the lives of thousandsevery moment —

and yet I can’t help it —

when the guilty have far more to fear than the innocent.

With new tactics and precision weapons we can

achieve military objectives without directing

violence against civilians.

It is a great moral advance

President George W. Bushmission accomplished speech

2003

80%of whom were civilians

iraq war logs2010

The recorded death toll since March 2003 is now over 150,000

We still have a choice to make today:

Nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.

Dr. Martin Luther King jr

REFERENCES:The Associated Press. “Text of Bush Speech.” CBS News. CBS News, 11 Feb. 2009. Web. <http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/01/iraq/main551946.shtml>.

Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried : A Work of Fiction. New York: Broadway Books, 1998

Iraq Body Count. “Iraq War Logs: What the Num-bers Reveal.” Iraq Body Count. Iraq Body Count, 23 Oct. 2010. Web. 03 Nov. 2011.

Wikipedia contributors. “Mushroom cloud.” Wiki-pedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 3 Nov. 2011. Web. 3 Nov. 2011