Jack in Iraq

The thing about war
is that
you have to be in one
before you
can talk about it
and then
you don't really want
to talk about it
except to the guys
who were there,
the guys who share
the same memories,
because there is this
like, wall,
between you and the people
back home, the ones
who didn't go,
unless, of course,
your particular
brand of horror
took place upon home ground
as it does, I guess,
for most people,
apart from Americans
(they don't call it
the VFW for nothing).

If you've ever
done drugs, not just pot,
but stuff like benzedrine,
and can remember
that jumpy, edgy high,
and can imagine
living in a constant buzz
for months and months
on end ....
well, then, there you have
the general background,
and in the midst of this sh-t,
the buzz and the constant high,
very very bad stuff
happens, and keeps
happening
day after day after day,
so you forget
you really just forget
what your life
was like before,
you honestly can't
remember.

For that reason
some people
(and I know this is true)
turn down Home Leave
because, much as
they want to see
their families,
their parents, their kids,
they are afraid
of the sudden transition
to "normality",
to the questions
they cannot answer
when they know
at the back of their minds
they will have to return
to the madness
and they are afraid
they will lose the edge,
lose the animal knowledge,
and get killed.

When your tour is up
you get home, that's when
the real trouble
sets in: you try
and you try and you try and you try
but you just can't
settle in. God knows
you WANT to
but it just won't happen.
One guy I knew,
totally sane and coherent,
used to sit
with a 30-odd-six
in the upstairs bedroom window
of his parents' house
(he didn't want to move out,
he needed company, regular mealtimes)
and from this window
he'd draw careful beads
on passing civilians:
so far, he said, I make sure
the magazine is empty.

War, I'm sorry, is not glorious.
War is not normal.
War is a licence to kill.
War is murder.
War is murder on such a scale
that individual lives
have NO meaning.
Civilians?
F--k civilians!
Anyone gets in the way
you just spray them,
blap - blap ... whoops!
Then you make jokes about it.
That's just the way it is.
The "enemy" is the local
people, period: "Dinks"
or "Gooks" or "Hajjis",
whatever: they all go down
if they ain't us.
Killing is so easy.
Killing is so easy
and nobody cares, nobody
gives a sh*t. It's accepted,
until you come back home
and try to be normal,
try to readjust, but you start
having these memories, start
having nightmares, flashbacks,
about the people you killed,
and it scares you, it freaks you,
and there is nobody
NOBODY
you can talk to.

I ran over a 6-year-old kid.
I shot a pregnant woman.
I shot an old guy because he couldn't speak English.

At the time, it was NORMAL,
(you know?) . Now ....
Oh, Jesus, now!!

Is there no-one to talk to?
Hello, government; hello, military?
Seems your lines are always engaged.
I need to hook up with some guys,
the ones who were there,
the guys who understand,
and more and more,
for the guys in this war,
we connect with the older guys,
the guys who went to Vietnam,
and it blows our minds
to listen to these guys
because it's like, it's like
a siren going off in our heads:
WHEEEEEeeeeeeeee.........!!
This is the same, same
f-cking, f-cking thing!

It was bad the first time, way back then.
So why the f-ck do we do it again?