the dogs of war

What a vast wreckage of human potential this senseless, endless war has brought.  These boys must have been so sturdy and shining, all big grins and lanky muscles; elan and eagerness; brawn and bravado; going somewhere  Now they recount their grisly everydays in beaten voices, giving no special emphasis to the horrors that became as nauseatingly familiar to them as weak tepid OJ in the glaring Mideast morning.

Were I their mothers, how insatiable would be my fury.  To think these bland smirking suits had taken all the life in one's beaming child and ground it down to this.  And that the thought should cross any mother's mind how very lucky he was to be back at all, not to be the subject of someone else's horror story; how unspeakable that for this one should have to feel grateful.

These boys, I am nothing to them; and yet I would like to hold them to my chest and let their warm hot tears flow over us both, let them crawl back into a time when horror movies were just a bit of fun and the thought of war exciting, nothing more.