Saturday, March 24, 2007

My Blue Eyed Son


Last night, after two hours sleep in the prior 38, I had to come home and deal with my very drunk roommate who was so far out of line, if I had remembered to bring home my credit card, I'd have gone to a hotel, damn the cost.

When I turned the subject to the newsstory of the Royal Marines on television, and Taylor's going to Iraq...called my son, my blue eyed boy...a baby killer.

I used to sing to him, "Oh, where have you been my blue eyed son? Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?"

A baby killer.

That phrase screamed at the soldiers who came home from Vietnam, never the same...who left boys, and returned...well, what were they when they returned? Souls scarred, minds that shunned what they had seen....it happens in every war, every battle, every time man puts on a uniform of some sort, chooses a side, and goes off to kill in the name of their cause.

They come home, pick up the pieces of their lives, and move forward. Some recover, some don't. It stays with them, in the back of their heads... it colours who they are, how they react the rest of their lives.

No, they aren't baby killers, but, it kills a part of them.

A hard rain's a-gonna fall.

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