Mrs.Jones

The world is always changin' you know. That's the way it's meant to be. Bin Laden is dead. I'm engaged and livin' with my fiance. Still broke though. The more things change...

We're all still broke I figure. Spendin' money on wars. Talk of a new war to make four. What's 1 more? Kinda wish somebody'd just be a man and say, “yeah, we fucked up” and get outta there already. Of course it ain't that simple. Never is. People dyin' over a thing, gonna be a big hurt if it ain't for sumthin' important. Prolly a good reason to make sure we have a reason to send the boys off to die. A full tank of gas ain't worth throwin' my life away for. Fattenin' the pockets of somebody else don't seem worth it either. But here we are. Killin' and dyin'. Killin' and dyin'. Killin' and dyin'.

Even if a man goes to war and comes back whole he's still gonna have a hole in him. All the death and destruction and the bombin' and the blood, that's gotta do damage, more so than you can see. The news treats it like it's just numbers and statistics. We just destroyed a family's home. We just lost Mrs. Jones her only son. It's not a game with a score card. Wars like the ones we're fightin' aren't as clear cut black and white as som would like to think. It's not the good guys in white against the villains in black. It's a struggling empire lookin' for resources held by poorer nations that don't want a starbucks on every corner and don't agree with bein' used up just to be forgotten. The poorer nations fight back with sneak attacks and threats to innocents. Nobody's a good guy in that story. Both are just desperate to keep their way of life.

Wanna know what to get a mother for her day? Bring her back that son that got sent to war. Bring back the boy she taught to tie his shoes, the one that used to play with his Tonka trucks in the driveway. Bring back the boy looked to her for comfort. The one that she helped turn into a man.

Of course there are patriotic reasons to join the armed forces. There are a dozen others besides that. But no mother raises her son to be a killer or to hide his pain in a bottle. A mother wants her children to grow up and be happy and healthy. War is made to kill and break the spirits of those who were once those children.