war

On our way back to her house, I didn__ look at the city lights any longer. I looked into the sky and felt as if the moon was following us.When I was a child, my grandmother told me that the sky speaks to those who look and listen to it. She said, __n the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy, and confusion._ That night I wanted the sky to talk to me.

Maybe it's time to stop being a soldier and go home to be a father. And a husband for Deanna. I'm not sure how.

I lay in my bed night after night staring at the ceiling and thinking, Why have I survived the war? Why was I the last person in my immediate family to be alive? I didn__ know.

When the wounded were screaming, you dreamed of sharing a little house somewhere, of an ordinary life, of a family line, connection. All around him, men were walking silently with their thoughts, reforming their lives, making resolutions. If I ever get out of this lot... They could never be counted, the dreamed-up children, mentally conceived on the walk into Dunkirk, and later made flesh.

I put my hands behind my head and lay on my back, trying to hold on to the memories of my family. Their faces seemed to be far off somewhere in my mind, and to get to them I had to bring up painful memories.

It is easier to start a war than to end it.

There are some corrupt Christians who do their business with female donkeys.

I don__ recall ever seeing my mother as a human being. She would always be weeping and wailing in the corner of the kitchen like a dog tied up to be tormented. My father would assail her with a hail of insults, and when her endurance broke, she would whine aloud, __hy good Lord? Why? Take me and save me._ Only then would my father stand up, take the cord out of his headdress, and whip her nonstop for half an hour, spitting at her throughout.

He took a deep breath in, still managing himself as if he were resisting temptation. He was a soldier, his father was in the service, too. Crying wasn't something Morell men did. They just didn't. He hadn't cried at Robbie Morell's funeral.So he wasn't going to now.

I feel like so much has been left undone. There are friends I won't see before I leave, there are bills I still need to pay. I haven't written as much as I've wanted, and there are countless things I've said that I wish I could correct, but this is a process that will never end. When my grandmother died she left a library full of books she never finished reading. This is how I feel now.

Afghanistan changed him, but Iraq sculpted him.

War is catastrophe. It breaks families in irretrievable pieces. But those who are gone are not necessarily lost.

Your daughter, your sister. She is salt to the sea,

Once war becomes a clash of absolutes, there is no breathing room for mercy. Absolute truth is blind truth.

It is our responsibility to pray for a peaceful world.

The most valuable treasure God has entrusted a shepherd with, is his sheep. No sheep is perfect but if shepherd despises them or adopts a scornful outlook for them then he has already began his downward plunge into faith which if He does not repent instantly, may eventually find himself warring against God himself who is our Good Shepherd.

This is what the LORD requires of every man; to do justice, to love mercy and to humbly work with God.

Always seek justice, but love only mercy. To love justice and hate mercy is but a doorway to more injustice.