A Welcome Home: Part Ii

the soldier knows many of the 4,500 who died in bashing Iraq, the soldier may be one of the 32,000 who have been wounded, or s/he may know any number of these individuals who for 9 years spent their time killing the 104,000 (estimated by Iraqis) or perhaps 600,000 (Lancet estimate) or perhaps even more civilians than that, as estimates of over a million come to light through further studies, not to mention the deaths caused by the strangling sanctions which the empire administered upon the country between 1991 & 2003. the soldier knows that the american embassy in Iraq will NEVER EVER be gone & that it is the largest in the world--- the soldier knows that the oil companies have been feeding on the land since the first green light like vultures tearing apart a carcass--- the soldier also knows that the contractors who have been getting paid more than him/her since the get-go are flooding into Iraq like it was going out of style as s/he goes home for a short time before they are called up again to go to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran or even Australia to bash bash bash the world into a bloody pulp even further. and over the “holidays” the same soldier can discuss with their veteran relatives from the Vietnam police action just how great the empire is that they live in, knowing first hand better than anyone just how far its greedy bloody talons can stretch--- then in tandem they can all shove their fingers down their throats to vomit up all that disgust again because it never goes away.