VETERANS TODAY – Obama Calls for Inclusive Military in State of the Union Address
– January 26, 2011
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“Do you remember killing me, my friend?
Surely you must?
I was just eight days old.
But then why should you remember me, just one of the many children you have slaughtered?
But I was wrapped in a nice new blue blanket.
You still don’t remember me?
I was being carried in the market by my mother.
You murdered her too.
Of course you don’t remember, there are so many bodies, so many lives you have ended.
Not you, you say?
Why, it was you that paid for the missile that took my life, don’t you remember?
It came from the tax you paid.
Do you remember now?
Money you regretted paying, because you need something else in your life.
Some gadget or toy.
You remember, you paid the wages of the man that aimed the missile at our market that day?
You voted for the man that gives him his orders.
The man you asked to protect you from me and my mother and the other million or so that you have slaughtered.
Do you still not recall?
I had a given name, but you know me as “collateral damage”.
Remember, you were gifting us your democracy that day?
Your democracy of depleted uranium.
Or was it in self defence that you murdered me?
Or was it revenge for something I didn’t do, years before I was born, knew nothing of in my innocence?
You tell me: Which just cause slammed my body into the dirt?
Did you think of me today as you went about your life, my friend?
Did you wonder what I might have become had you not slaughtered me?
Had not smashed my soft bones and crushed the new life from me?
Did you talk of me with your family?
Mention my murder to a colleague?
Spare me a thought as you filled your car at the station, ate your evening meal, watched T.V., tucked your children into bed?
Did you see my face today?
Did you wash my blood from your hands today?
It’s still there, my friend, and always will be.
Did you pray to your God today?
Did you do anything to stop this murder today?
Did you protest? Did you march? Did you withhold your tax? Did you rage against the slaughter of innocents?
Did you spare just a passing thought for me today, my friend?
Remember I had a name?
My name was collateral damage. I was eight days old. Wrapped in a blue blanket.
And you killed me. Don’t you remember?”