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."
And when at the age of 13,
the Iraqi girl who would later be known as Umm Nayef was approached by a
Saudi man, she realised that her marriage would be the first step
towards the fulfilment of her dreams.
“We were living in Kuwait and
I readily accepted,” she said. “We had five children together. One day,
he decided to go back to Saudi Arabia and prepared the necessary papers
for himself and the five children. But not me.
He simply did not
recognise me as his wife and did not record my name anywhere,” she said,
quoted by local Saudi daily Al Sharq.
Despite her repeated pleas to
recognise her formally as his wife, her husband refused. He later
brought her to Saudi Arabia, but on a domestic helper’s visa.
She insisted on her status with her children. I eventually chose to marry a Saudi man who was paralysed.
My aim was to be near my children,” she recalled.
Umm Nayef
moved to a garage donated by a benevolent man and started selling sundry
items at the popular market in Hafr Al Baten in the northeastern region
of Saudi Arabia to sustain herself.
“However, one month later, my
former husband contacted my family in Iraq and told them that I got
married to a man who was beneath my dignity and social class.
One of my
nephews was so upset that he came to Saudi Arabia and shot at me with
his pistol as I was heading home from the market. He hit me on the back
and I suddenly lost all power to move.”
