October 16, 2002

What is War?

A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
by Mike Kress

War is not an antiseptic array of green blips over Bagdhad, flashing across your TV screen.

War is not a grainy black and white video tape, with a missile striking a pristine blow on a tank or a bunker.

War is not a three-star general in a starched desert camoflage uniform, entertaining a captive press corps.

War is the frightened soldier marched to the front, who misses his family and pisses in his pants when artillery blasts across his trench.

War is the guilt that a person lives with when he or she accidentally incinerates other fighting men and women on the same side.

War is the mother and child cowering for shelter, only to have their brains and guts blasted out by a bomb dropped from an F-15 at 30,000 feet.

War is the men, women, and children who survive the crossfire at the price of a leg, an arm, an eye, a foot, or the capacity to move their bowels.

War is the farms, rivers, schools, homes, and hospitals poisoned by depleted uranium munitions and the diseases of rotting corpses.

War is the slow, agonizing death of human beings exposed to horrific nerve gasses and biological stews.

War is the blackened eyes and the broken bones of the tortured POW.

War is the fear that tastes like iron shavings on your tongue, and feels like lead in your limbs.

War is the mangling of minds, the destruction of bodies, and the obliteration of futures.

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Mike Kress is a Gulf veteran and writer from Spokane, WA. He welcomes comments at anotherportal3@yahoo.com

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