soldiers

Yet I now ask of you__re you marauders or are you servants? Do you give power to others, or do you hoard it? Do you fight not to have something, but rather fight so that others might one day have something? Is your blade a part of your soul, or is it a burden, a tool, to be used with care? Are you soldiers, my children, or are you savages?

WILL WORK FOR FOOD © 2013 Lyrics & Music by Michele JennaeThere he was with a cardboard sign, Will Work For Food Saw him on the roadside, As I took my kids to schoolI really didn__ have time to stop, Already running late Found myself pulling over, Into the hands of fate The look in his eyes was empty, But he held out his hand I knew my kids were watching, As I gave him all I had My heart in my throat I had to ask, __hat brought you here?_ He looked up and straight into my eyes, I wanted to disappear. CHORUS He said_ Do you think I really saw myself, Standing in this light Forgotten by society, After fighting for your rights WILL WORK FOR FOOD, WILL DIE FOR YOU I AM JUST A FORGOTTEN SOLDIER, I DON__ KNOW WHAT TO DOv. 2 He put the money in his pocket, Then he took me by the hand Thank you dear for stopping by, I am sure that you have plans He nodded toward my children, Watching from afar It__ time they were off to school, You should get in the car My eyes welled up and tears fell down, I couldn__ say a word Here this man with nothing to his name, Showing me his concern I knew then that the lesson, That today must be taught Wouldn__ come from textbooks, And it could not be bought CHORUS He said_ Do you think I really saw myself, Standing in this light Forgotten by society, After fighting for your rights WILL WORK FOR FOOD, WILL DIE FOR YOU I AM JUST A FORGOTTEN SOLDIER, I DON__ KNOW WHAT TO DOv. 3 I told him then that I had a job, That I could give him work And in return he__ have a meal, And something to quench his thirst He looked at me and shrugged a bit, And followed me to the car We went right over to a little café, Just up the road not too far After I ordered our food he looked at me, And asked about the kids __houldn__ these tykes be in school, And about that job you said._ __our job,_ I said, __s to school my girls, In the ways of the world Explain to them your service, And how your life unfurled.__e said_ Do you think I really saw myself, Standing in this light Forgotten by society, After fighting for your rights WILL WORK FOR FOOD, WILL DIE FOR YOU I AM JUST A FORGOTTEN SOLDIER, I DON__ KNOW WHAT TO DOv. 4He wasn__ sure quite what to do, As he ate his food And began to tell us all about his life_ the bad_ the good. He wiped his own tears from his eyes, His story all but done My girls and I all choked up, Hugged him one by one Understanding his sacrifice, But not his current plight We resolved then and there that day, That for him, we would fight. We offered him our friendship, And anything else we had He wasn__ sure how to accept it, But we made him understandLAST CHORUS That we had not really seen before, Him standing in the light No longer forgotten by us, We are now fighting for his rights He had_ WORKED FOR FOOD HE HAD ALL BUT DIED FOR ME AND YOU NOT FORGOTTEN ANYMORE BUT STILL A SOLDIER IN TRUST

I crawled in a spirit-haunted placeMade wild by souls that moan and mourn;And Death leered by with mangled face -Ah God! I prayed, I prayed for dawn.

_ as General Berringer would readily admit, __f you__e in a fair fight, I__e done something wrong.

Cigarettes are called coffin nails for a reason, Billy Boy," I remembered telling him. "Be careful with those things. You're risking your life.

Soldiers of capitalism are the fathers of dissent.

A thug. In peacetime Fitch would be hanging around a pool table giving the cops trouble. He was perfect for war. Tibbets had chosen his men well - most of them, anyway. Moving back past Haddock January stopped to stare at the group of men in the navigation cabin. They joked, drank coffee. They were all a bit like Fitch: young toughs, capable and thoughtless. They're having a good time, an adventure. That was January's dominant impression of his companions in the 509th; despite all the bitching and the occasional moments of overmastering fear, they were having a good time. His mind spun forward and he saw what these young men would grow up to be like as clearly as if they stood before him in businessmen's suits, prosperous and balding. They would be tough and capable and thoughtless, and as the years passed and the great war receded in time they would look back on it with ever-increasing nostalgia, for they would be the survivors and not the dead. Every year of this war would feel like ten in their memories, so that the war would always remain the central experience of their lives - a time when history lay palpable in their hands, when each of their daily acts affected it, when moral issues were simple, and others told them what to do - so that as more years passed and the survivors aged, bodies falling apart, lives in one rut or another, they would unconsciously push harder and harder to thrust the world into war again, thinking somewhere inside themselves that if they could only return to world war then they would magically be again as they were in the last one - young, and free, and happy. And by that time they would hold the positions of power, they would be capable of doing it.

Every war has its martyrs _ the unsung heroes who sometimes don__ even know the rationale behind the war they are fighting. They fight because they are trained to, kill because they are told to and die because they are destined to.

And be very careful at the front, Paul.__h, Mother, Mother! Why do I not take you in my arms and die with you. What poor wretches we are!

The soldiers had been entrenched in their positions for several weeks but there was little, if any fighting, except for the dozen rounds they ritually exchanged every day. The weather was extremely pleasant. The air was heavy with the scent of wildflowers and nature seem to be following its course, quite unmindful of the soldiers hiding behind rocks and camouflaged by mountain shrubbery. The birds sang as they always had and the flowers were in bloom. Bees buzzed about lazily. Only when a shot rang out, the birds got startled and took flight, as if a musician had struck a jarring note on his instrument. It was almost the end of September, neither hot nor cold. It seemed as if summer and winter had made their peace. In the blue skies, cotton clouds floated all day like barges on a lake.The soldiers seemed to be getting tired of this indecisive war where nothing much ever happened. Their positions were quite impregnable. The two hills on which they were placed faced each other and were about the same height, so no one side had an advantage. Down below in the valley, a stream zigzagged furiously on its stony bed like a snake.The air force was not involved in the combat and neither of the adversaries had heavy guns or mortars. At night, they would light huge fires and hear each other's voices echoing through the hills.From The Dog of Titwal, a short story.

He wants me to tell him about the front; he is curious in a way that I find stupid and distressing; I no longer have any real contact with him. There is nothing he likes more than just hearing about it. I realize he does not know that a man cannot talk of such things; I would do it willingly, but it is too dangerous for me to put these things into words. I am afraid they might then become gigantic and I be no longer able to master them. What would become of us if everything that happens out there were quite clear to us?

A man dreams of a miracle and wakes up to loaves of bread.

There were thousands of Kantoreks, all of whom were convinced that they were acting for the best__n a way that cost them nothing. And that is why they let us down so badly. _in our hearts we trusted them. The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more humane wisdom. But the first death we saw shattered this belief. We had to recognize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs. They surpassed us only in phrases and in cleverness the first bombardment showed us our mistake, and under it the world as they had taught it to us broke in pieces. While they continued to write and talk, we saw the dying. While they taught that duty to one__ country is the greatest thing, we already knew that death-throes are stronger. But for all that we were no mutineers, no deserters, no cowards__hey were very free with all these expressions. We loved our country as much as they; we went courageously into every action; but also we distinguished the false from true, we had suddenly learned to see. And we saw that there was nothing of their world left. We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through.

And this I know: all these things that now, while we are still in the war, sink down in us like a stone, after the war shall waken again, and then shall begin the disentanglement of life and death.

I could have become a doctor, an engineer, a mechanic or even a car salesman but instead, I chose to be a soldier. Who was to blame? The way they glorified war back home could make anyone quit their job and join the army. The romanticized notions of being a soldier lasted till the time you had to take a life or two. After that, it all came crashing down and most of the men who signed up pulled their hair wondering why they bought into all this bullshit. We had no one to blame but ourselves. We wanted to serve this country and what better way to do it than to shoot, bomb and incinerate the enemy as our comrades fall next to us and a wife and mother somewhere hold on to a flag tightly and shed tears of loss. There was no glory in war, there was only death. These designations and medals were like magnets on a refrigerator. They didn__ mean a thing to the children who were orphaned or wives who were widowed. They didn__ mean a thing to soldiers who walked home after years on a battlefield to find their wives in bed with someone else. Yet we kept going forward, obeying every order pushed down our throats_ fighting, killing.

The slow, mismanaged arrival of armored vehicles and bulletproof plates for flak vests was only the most conspicuous demonstration of how the Iraq War, like every war -- just or unjust, won or lost -- became a conspiracy of the old and powerful against the young and dutiful.

If we want to benefit most from our suffering, by prayer and meditation, we will approach our suffering as a good soldier approaches war. What do I mean by that? A good soldier who has trained and trained is not surprised when he fins himself in war! He has been trained for it. Likewise, consider it your Job to be be prepared to suffer. That puts a whole different cast on Sunday morning, doesn't it? You are gathering with God's people Lord's Day after Lord's Day to train as good soldiers of Jesus Christ so that when your time of trial and testing sand suffering comes, you will be ready.

The word is my weapon. FIRE!