war death colors and theatre

The blog has been down all day it seems, and I have taken the time to go through all of the photos of the US soldiers killed in this illegal occupation. I have over 800 photos, there are more that 1250 names, and I am sick of doing the unthinkable. Then I remember those damned Cronkite moments, you know the ones if you are near my age... Those "enemies killed today _ _ _ and our troops killed _

And goodnight and have a pleasant tomorrow!"

Shit. It wasn't just one stone carver that did the Vietnam wall, but this is starting to look like the page I create of those little 50 pixel by 75 pixel photos is going to start taking a huge amount of time to load. And still...

I used to be a color photographic printer and color corrector. I remember seeing those photos come in, the ones of the faces with the solemn eyes and the hats that were bigger than their heads, and printing them up thinking "this is the last photo this family has of this kid" and that kid, my age, looked back at me with tears. The dishonor of our country for stealing his life, the horror of going into a mission unequipped and overburdened with the war of the Nixon, the Johnson, hell all the way back to the Eisenhower administration.... We can't lose.. We can't lose...

And they were betrayed by their own damned country. They lost even if they made it home. We continue to kill them every day. They are homeless, they are waking with unimaginable nightmares, they are the grandfathers of those whose faces I look at today.

And I take that little postage stamped size picture and I photoshop it, change a bit, give that guy a bit more hairline, yup, 32 years old, 55 years old. Hell, what are we doing?

Today's blog is all about the military. How many we are disgracing today, how much forced conscription we create, how we are blind to the truth of the causes of this horrid monstrous piece of theatre called war.

Their blood is red. I add cyan to pictures I don't want to see the red. I change the green faces to warm tones. I make that kid look like it was the best damned day of his life and that his family will see him coming home in the next plane.... Too fucking bad he's not a passenger. Nope, he is watching as they cart off that fucking flag-draped casket and take him to the funeral home. He watches as the family cries, the mothers mourn, the children ask "what is wrong, mommy?? When is daddy coming home?"

And I can't correct that with a filter or an airbrush. I can't make it happen, I can't do anything but add to that horrible wall of photos and wonder about each one of those faces, what they thought when they realized they were dying, if they were in pain, how they felt being the first or the last or the one that was killed just because the damned officer told him to check out the next house, the other building, the wall over their, the field, the rice paddy, the sand, the brush, the jungle,..... It is all the fucking same, war is.... The theatre they call war....

we bleed and we cry and we try to make a difference. And in a courtroom in Canada, a young man with a conscience awaits his fate.

happy fucking holidays.