Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
The Ikeya-Seki comet appeared on Indonesia's eastern horizon early one morning last October. From the base of the volcano Agung, navel of creation and home of the Great Gods, the mystic prophets of the island of Bali watched it streak through the sky for ten days and were alarmed. It was an omen, they warned, of much death and change of government in the land.
Left : Suharto
The prophecy was all too accurate. Amid a boiling bloodbath that almost unnoticed took 400,000 lives, Indonesia, the sprawling giant of Southeast Asia, has done a complete about-face. It changed not only its government but its political direction, fundamentally, radically and unexpectedly. President Sukarno, after 20 years of egotistical misrule, has been stripped of almost everything but his palaces and women. A new regime has risen, backed by the army but scrupulously constitutional and commanding vociferous popular support. "Indonesia is a state based on law not on mere power," says its new leader, a quietly determined Javanese general whose only name is Suharto.
Under Suharto, the nation that last year was a virtual Peking satellite has become a vigorous foe of Red China. It has called off its senseless, undeclared war against Malaysia and revived its friendships with other neighbors. It has halted the economy-wrecking prestige projects that Sukarno so dearly loved. And in an orgy of flashing knives and coughing guns, it has virtually wiped out the Partai Komunis Indonesia (P.K.I.) —which under Sukarno had grown to be the third largest Communist Party in the world.
The Yellow Jackets. Last week in Djakarta, the fall of Sukarno was made complete. Gone were the giant billboards that once portrayed him as a people's hero kicking Uncle Sam in the tail. Instead, the city's fences and walls were covered with neatly scrawled slogans such as "Go to Hell, Marxism." Gone were the Communist mobs that had made the U.S. embassy their favorite battleground, gone too the armed youth cadres that had marched daily through Djakarta, singing America, Satan of the World. Demonstrators still surged through the streets, but they wore the yellow jackets of the Anti-Communist Students Action Command, and the song they sang—to the tune of Michael Row the Boat Ashore—was "Sukarno should be pensioned off."
The most dramatic scene of all was in the Moscow-built Bung Karno Sports Palace. There, under the silent, smiling gaze of General Suharto, the Provisional People's Consultative Congress had been in session since the middle of June to put the final seal of legality on the great change. It had already confirmed Suharto's authority to act "on behalf of" Sukarno. Last week, without a dissenting voice, it revoked Sukarno's authority to issue decrees in his own name. It also formally outlawed any form of Marxism, approved Suharto's moves to end the Malaysia conflict and his decision to reapply for membership in such world organizations as the United Nations, which Bung Karno had contemptuously abandoned. Then, in the unkindest cut of all, the Congress stripped the Bung of his lifetime presidency and ordered national elections within two years. Continued here....
