The Warrior Returns

His head was freshly shaved.
A blue square bandage
on his shoulder covered
the small pox shot they all get
before they ship out to Iraq.
In days he ' d be cargo on some army plane,
and I ' d be in New York City listening
to his message on my machine.
I save all his messages.

PBS marked the beginning of the sixth year in Iraq with a documentary called "Bush's War." It recounted the welter of petty fiefdoms, egocentric agendas and failures of understanding that led a small group of middle-aged men to send a large group of young men and women into this debacle. "Headquarters heroes," one former CIA man called them derisively, antsy to target Iraq while the World Trade Center was still smoking.

There is only one reason to go to war, and the architects of this one have never come close to satisfying it. It is that you have a cause so great that it justifies asking people to sacrifice their children.

Last Mother ' s Day,
when he was incommunicado,
nothing came.
Three days later, a message
in my box; a package,
the mail room closed.
I went out into the lobby,
banged my fist against
the desk. When they
gave it to me, I clutched it
to my chest, sobbing
like an anima l.
I spoke to no one,
did not apologize.
I didn ' t care about the gift.
It was the note I wanted,
the salt from his hand,
the words.

Fran and Ben are on a book tour together, stopping at Fort Bragg and West Point. The child in the striped shirt, age 33, leaves the Army in July. "Before he was a warrior," his mother writes in one of her poems, "he was a boy."

© 2008