The Sigfried Sassoon poem is also one of my favorites.

About the mothers of the sons who kill each other without mercy.

And Wilfred Owen's, about the nature of man, that he would rather kill his own son than to sacrifice his "ram of pride" instead.

I walked the harvested fields and well-manicured woods half a click north of Bastogne one late August day. It's where my father fought and bled and killed. There was no sound except a few birds and the humming of farm equipment off in the distance. I had to keep checking the hand-drawn map an old veteran gave me. He was with my father back then. Maybe this wasn't the place. Maybe this wasn't the field, the treeline, the woods, where their lives changed forever. But I found the rock he drew on the map, the one he told me about. And still to this day you can put your fingers in the pock marks of machine gun bullets. They crouched behind that rock for hours, pinned down and certain they were going to die there. But they didn't die that day, nor for the rest of the war. They both came home.

What overwhelmed me in that peaceful woods on that hill above town was the contrast between the loneliness of this forgotten place and the number of dead I know from records once lay frozen here in January of 1945. Farmers run their harvesters over that land. Tree cutters come in from time to time and take the pines to sell.

We will eventually leave Iraq. We can't stay there. We don't belong there. Someday the rock-strewn, deadly IED-infested road where Mora and Gray died will be clean and modern, just like Ho Chi Minh City is now. No trace. No trace in Belgium. No trace in Vietnam. No trace in Iraq. Human life overruns all battlefields and buries them literally and figuratively. So it makes you wonder why the hell mankind keeps going through this self destruction. Have we not the ability to learn anything?

Enjoy Vietnam, Pyrrho. They tell me it's thriving. They tell me that only the old cab drivers remember us. The young people vaguely learn about the American War in school. But to them it might as well be a century ago. In a way, that's good. They don't hold a grudge for what we did there. I wish I could do the same.

The Executive Office Building, that grand old structure next to the White House, was seen to have thick black smoke billowing from a second story window this morning.

Now c'mon Bushistas just use paper shredders like Reagan did. You don't have to build a bonfire in the EOB. Geez!

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,

And took the fire with him, and a knife.

And as they sojourned both of them together,

Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,

Behold the preparations, fire and iron,

But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?

Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,

And builded parapets and trenches there,

And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.

When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,

Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,

Neither do anything to him. Behold,

A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;

Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,

And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Wilfred Owen 1918

Even a busted watch is right twice a day Johnny. You're only one for two.

You always were generous with your Red Stars. Thank you for recognizing my considerable talent. :-)

If you run into Joe Klein over there at Time, please give him the old "Rochambeau" for me. (South Park fans get it).

Oh that's a good one! I missed that. Willard pulled over to the side of the road and wept because the Deseret radio announced that some old white crackpot "saint" got a message from "above" that suddenly "Negroes" no longer bear "the mark of Cane" and will be allowed into the all-white LDS crime family!

This fuck is unhinged, crying all the time like that. Don't let him near the White House.

Not that I believe Willard's story, but if it was true, just why was Willard crying?

1. Because he had fought the LDS all of his life to get Blacks off the "untouchables" list? Did I miss the part where Willard took part in the Civil Rights movement of the 60s? Did he march on Selma? Was he linking arms with Jesse, Ralph Abernathy, and the other leaders who took up the battle from MLK? I'm sorry, I've seen the archived footage and I just don't recall seeing Willard down there registering Black voters in Alabama and fighting off the Klan.

2. OK. Was he crying because suddenly it dawned on him that one of his lily white sons might go to the tabernacle and meet a dusky doe-eyed Black girl and get married and give ol' Willard some "half-breed" children? Can you imagine how uncomfortable ol' Willard would be at Christmas when a whole clan of Black people showed up for egg nog and opening presents on Christmas morning. Sort of, the "clan" meets the "Klan." That might make Willard cry all right. Guess who's coming to breakfast?

3. Maybe he was crying because finally, at long last, BYU would win at least half of their college basketball games from now on.

I don't know. Maybe he did cry. I know he's going to be crying over all the personal money he sunk into his failing bid for the presidency.

So long Willard, you screwball. It's been fun.

Sorry 'bout that. Sin loi!