Dulce et decorum

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
-Wilfred Owen

I was reminded today how much it irks me when people express the sentiment that war is "cool" or "patriotic".

Perhaps this is another one of the reasons I feel so uncomfortable with people who want to shake my hand and call me a "hero".

War is a destructive force. As Chris Hedges aptly put it, it is chemotherapy. At times it may remove a greater evil, but in the process it strips away and destroys.

I was accepted into a platoon today. I pray I do well.