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."
Each year, human rights observers report that as many as 1,000 mostly
Christian and Hindu girls and young women in Pakistan are raped and
subjected to forced conversions and marriages to Muslim men.
These
crimes have helped earn Pakistan its ignominious designation as a
“Country of Particular Concern” on the U.S. Department of State’s
Religious Freedom Report. Representing only 2% of the population of
Pakistan, Christians are often victims of the country’s harsh blasphemy
laws and mob violence.
That number however, represents only about half of the actual number of victims,
says Shaheed Mobeen, a Pakistani professor of philosophy at the
Pontifical Urban University in Rome and an advocate for religious
freedom in Pakistan.
Mobeen is a witness testifying at the
International Religious Freedom Summit, held in Washington, DC, this
week. A guest of the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, he is
here to talk about the persecution of religious minorities in
Muslim-majority Pakistan.
Aid to the Church in Need,
in its support of persecuted Christians around the world, helps fund
the legal defense of Christians accused of blasphemy, and aids in the
rescue of Christian girls abducted and forcibly converted.
