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."
EOTW : AMMAN (Reuters) - The death toll after nearly four years of civil war in Syria has risen to 210,060, nearly half of them civilians, but the real figure is probably much higher, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday.
The Observatory, which is based in Britain and has a network of activists across Syria, said that 10,664 children and 6,783 women were among the dead.
Reuters tried to contact Syrian authorities for comment, but they were not immediately available.
Peaceful protests against four decades of rule by President Bashar
al-Assad's family in March 2011 degenerated into an armed insurgency
following a fierce security crackdown. The rights group said it had counted 35,827 Syrian rebels and 45,385
Syrian army soldiers killed. The Observatory's toll could not be
independently verified by Reuters. Among the Observatory's documented deaths were 24,989 foreign jihadist fighters, including radical Sunni rebel groups such as Al Qaeda offshoot Nusra Front and Islamic State. But the total death toll was likely to be much higher, perhaps by more than 85,000,
said the group's chief, Rami Abdul Rahman. Groups on both sides try to
hide their casualties, he said, making the fighter death toll very
difficult to gauge. Over 3,000 fighters belonging to Shi'ite militias and groups in Iraq and
Iran, including 640 from Lebanon's Hezbollah, died fighting alongside
the Syrian army, the group said. Abdul Rahman said all the cases included in its 210,000 death count were
those it could verify with either name and identification documents, or
pictures or videos. Syria had a population of some 23 million before the outbreak of the
war. Beside the dead and injured, the United Nations says some 3.73
million Syrians have fled the country and officially registered as
refugees abroad.
The rights group also said the war had left 1.5 million Syrians with some type of injury and permanent disability.
