The Sadness That Is War

A Trucker’s View from the Road

Lest people think that protest against the madness of the Bush Regime is just for college kids, some youthful folly they’ll abandon as soon as they get a taste of The Real World, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Kim, over-the-road truck driver and Mom, your emissary from beyond the walls of academe. My world is the world of boneweary drivers plying pitchdark roads slapping their own faces to stay awake through an eleven hour driving shift, of forklifts pirouetting in warehouses in the wee hours, all so we the people may obey the Regime’s one true mandate: Shut Up and Buy. Never fear, when you open the case at the Convenience Store and reach for that can of Assault Energy Drink; it’ll be there, thanks to folks like me.

[snip]

“Were you in Iraq?” I asked.

“Yes.” I held my tongue and waited, not knowing what I would hear next. The waiter hung his head and clasped his hands in front of him. He was built like a weightlifter; I could see the veins in his arms. He said he’d been there when the Marines went in to Kuwait City and Fallujah. “I’m not proud of what I did,” he said softly, and he repeated that statement over and over throughout the conversation, as someone might say “um,” or “ok.”

“In Fallujah, it was like in the Bible,” he began slowly. “When they marked the houses with lamb’s blood, and the Angel of Death flew over and killed the firstborn sons in all the houses that weren’t marked. They marked the houses…and the ones that weren’t marked, they had us go in and open fire and…” He stopped speaking and only made gestures.

“The kids?” asked my co-driver.

“Yes.”

Read all of it here.