By Frank Capra
Creative Commons
By HC Jay Powell
Editor’s Note: SDFP Contributor Jay Powell left a comment on a recent Starting Line that referred to the 11th year anniversary of President George W. Bush’s cosplay of “Mission Accomplished.” Jay’s comment included this poem. We think it deserves its own readership.
Dunkirk
Please do for our troops what
the British did for theirs
when they were
trapped:
get them out alive.
The only “surge” we
want now
is a rescue surge
for our brave men and women in service
with their lives on the line to their nation.
Send whoever you need to send
to bring them out
of this caldron of barbarism
brewed
by the self absorbed
prince of privilege
and his smirking master of “Vice-ery”.
Send boats and planes,
mount up your luxury SUVs,
paid for and run on the
blood of sons and daughters,
fathers and mothers,
brothers and sisters,
wives and husbands,
uncles and aunts
cousins, nephews, nieces
(How many more names do we
call the dead and maimed
damaged generations
for this folly and greed,
arrogance and stupidity? )
Over the dunes with your
surround sound
leather upholstery,
if you must.
Those of us with
simple plebian
minivans or sedans–
whatever brand you
drive,
drop us into Baghdad
or Kirkut, where ever
they are with a
tank of gas so
we can
grab them from the
tin cans painted
with targets that you
put them in to be
gleefully
chased, ambushed
exploded.
They fight on when asked,
and they are asked too much.
Race across the bridges, the barrens,
the desert,
grasp them from out of this
brew of deceit.
A dream would “beam them up”
into a mother’s arms,
these brave, honorable,
dazed,
betrayed.
Rescue them
to fight again
another day, when
a leader and a people have
honor.
© HC Jay Powell, December 2006
(veteran for peace, USN, 1966-1971)
Jay Powell
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Whew! “brew of deceit” Indeed.
Yes. Thanks, Jay.
I sent this originally as part of comment to Doug Porter’s note in recent Starting Line that May 1 was 11 year anniversary of “Mission Accomplished” show off our coast. If you missed that, it’s inside his column headlined about Obamacare last week (he has nice you tube of Neil Young “Shock and Awe” that says it like only Neil can… “we had a chance to change our mind…”). One of the editors pulled it and posted. Wrote this several months after visiting Cindy Sheehan and friends at Camp Casey down the road from “W’s” compound in Crawford, Texas on Easter Weekend in ’06. My friend Bill and I and several dozen others were ordained by the Reverend Joseph Lowery as “Chaplains for the Common Good” at sunrise service and I joined Veterans for Peace which has great local chapter in honor of Hugh Thompson (helicopter pilot who blew the whistle on My Lai massacre). Peace, Love and Understanding.
I am unfamiliar with “Chaplains for the Common Good.” & of course the Google machine comes through with information. I particularly like this:
“Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery’s stirring address at Clegg Auditorium Thursday night called upon us all to be chaplains of the common good, to set aside rancor, racism, and divisiveness, to care for the least among us, to be on the right side of history, to be good crazy. Amen, and amen.
Dr. Lowery, soon to be 88 years old, evoked frequent laughter—he had a secret wish to kiss Beyonce (On the cheek, because of her grace in deflecting Kanye West’s rudeness at the MTV Video Music Awards by giving Taylor West her full chance to speak.); he said he was neither a Democrat nor a Republican, but a Methodist (“The Democrats take us for granted. The Republicans just take us.”)—and the legendary civil rights warrior stirred the audience with his call to serve and with his personal anecdotes.”
I am not surprised by the company Jay keeps & I’m glad we have a Chaplain for the Common Good among us.