Forgive me if this title makes you mad.
That was my intention.
My goal is to draw your awareness to
a fact that's rarely mentioned
Emotions can be manipulated.
Of military might made sure
At first you are nothing
Until prepared for war
But a haircut and a uniform make,
Emotions for the taking.
These stories teach us what to revere,
so that when the darkness comes
We will not fear.
This fondness for glory
Usually a politician told,
Helps us hate the other
This void makes us bold.
After toil,
Debts paid,
Off as heroes
Home sent.
Alas our training
Still defined
Makes us think
We are a different kind.
That no one can understand
Is a myth they told
To make us warriors
Blindly bold.
The suffering you keep
By your civilian brethren
Arms length
Is still the story screaming
Be Bold, Be Bold.
Follow my path into history,
see that this mystery
Can be solved
A traitor,
A tanker,
A nobleman,
A Homosexual,
All warriors to a T.
That we are human,is divine.
That we are connected
Is because of
Toil, and suffering,
Regardless of Time.
John Boyle O'Reilly (1844-1890)
In 1863 John joined the Irish Republican brotherhood. These guys attempted to overthrow British rule in Ireland. He joined the British, Prince of Wales Regiment is a usurper for the brotherhood. He convinced 80 out of 100 of his brothers in arms to mutiny. His plot was exposed and he was sentenced to death. He ended up getting out of this execution and made it to America. The poem below is called The Cry of a Dreamer, published May 8, 1886.
The Cry of the Dreamer
I am tired of planning and toiling
In the crowded hives of men;
Heart-weary of building and spoiling,
And spoiling and building again.
And I long for the dear old river,
Where I dreamed my youth away;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And a toiler dies in a day.
I am sick of the showy seeming
Of a life that is half a lie;
Of the faces lined with scheming
In the throng that hurries by.
From the sleepless thoughts' endeavour,
I would go where the children play;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And a thinker dies in a day.
I can feel no pride, but pity
For the burdens the rich endure;
There is nothing sweet in the city
But the patient lives of the poor.
Oh, the little hands too skillful,
And the child-mind choked with weeds!
The daughter's heart grown willful,
And the father's heart that bleeds!
No, no! from the street's rude bustle,
From the trophies of mart and stage,
I would fly to the woods' low rustle
And the meadows' kindly page.
Let me dream as of old by the river,
And be loved for the dream alway;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And a toiler dies in a day.
Keith Douglas (1920–1944)
Keith begin his soldier career as a tanker during World War II. Most of his fighting was in north African campaign. In June 1944 he commanded tank troop during the D-Day invasion. Three days later he was killed by a mortar.
How To Kill
Under the parabola of a ball,
a child turning into a man,
I looked into the air too long.
The ball fell in my hand, it sang
in the closed fist: Open Open
Behold a gift designed to kill.
Now in my dial of glass appears
the soldier who is going to die.
He smiles, and moves about in ways
his mother knows, habits of his.
The wires touch his face: I cry
NOW. Death, like a familiar, hears
And look, has made a man of dust
of a man of flesh. This sorcery
I do. Being damned, I am amused
to see the centre of love diffused
and the wave of love travel into vacancy.
How easy it is to make a ghost.
The weightless mosquito touches
her tiny shadow on the stone,
and with how like, how infinite
a lightness, man and shadow meet.
They fuse. A shadow is a man
when the mosquito death approaches
D. H. Lawrence 1885–1930
Lawrence was an English nobleman married to the cousin of a German flying ace at the beginning of World War I.
Twice deemed unfit for service by the military he once remarked "the war is just hell for me I can't get away from it for a minute: life in a sort of coma like one of those nightmares when you can't move.
Bombardment
The Town has opened to the sun.
Like a flat red lily with a million petals
She unfolds, she comes undone.
A sharp sky brushes upon
The myriad glittering chimney-pots
As she gently exhales to the sun.
Hurrying creatures run
Down the labyrinth of the sinister flower.
What is it they shun?
A dark bird falls from the sun.
It curves in a rush to the heart of the vast
Flower: the day has begun.
Thom Gunn (1929–2004)
Thom was already a well-established poet and the AIDS epidemic started having a huge impact on the homosexual community. Thom was 10 at the beginning of World War II and 16 when it ended. He also spent two years in National Service. His war was watching the death of his friends from AIDS.
The Man With Night Sweats
I wake up cold, I who
Prospered through dreams of heat
Wake to their residue,
Sweat, and a clinging sheet.
My flesh was its own shield:
Where it was gashed, it healed.
I grew as I explored
The body I could trust
Even while I adored
The risk that made robust,
A world of wonders in
Each challenge to the skin.
I cannot but be sorry
The given shield was cracked,
My mind reduced to hurry,
My flesh reduced and wrecked.
I have to change the bed,
But catch myself instead
Stopped upright where I am
Hugging my body to me
As if to shield it from
The pains that will go through me,
As if hands were enough
To hold an avalanche off.
Again my apologies for drawing you in with such an emotionally charged title.
I leave you with this dear reader.
If it is true,
That I am
Just Me,
And you are
Just you,
Then these words we read are nothing.
Then that feeling in our heart is a lie.
But if words can be used by the military
Then surely they can connect you and I.
ARMOR DOWN UPDATES
This post was guided by the 99th stanza of the Art of Peace, a book written by Morihei Ueshiba
Armor Down is backing Legislation "H.R. 3516" AKA "The Veterans and Armed Forces’ Health Promotion Act of 2013".
This bill will
• Expand the scope of holistic care education and research for signature wounds such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
• Establish complementary and alternative medicine pilot programs for mental health and pain management treatment for veterans.
• Create a grant pilot program to upgrade Veteran Service Organization facilities, expanding the reach of wellness services directly into economically strained communities.
What we need right now people to show their support for this legislation by signing this petition.
To learn more about Taming and Training the mind in the gym, follow this link for two of the four week course.
A new comedy on Fox, called Enlisted is really funny. Check it out.
Mindful Memorial Day is coming in May.
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