2015 & Beyond in Science & Arts
For November 1, 2006

 

by Anthony P. PENNINO

Inspired by
"The War Prayer" by Mark Twain
&
Abraham Lincoln's State of the Union Address, 1862

Elegy For An Enemy Soldier

VOICE #1

Today, we lay to rest this soldier. An enemy combatant. Name unknown. Lord, we stand here at the edge of this battlefield at Saratoga-Alamo-Antietam - Cienfuegos - Cantigny - Anzio - Tarawa - The Puson Perimeter - Khe Sahn - Mogadishu - Nassiriya. We ask that you take the soul of this Limey - Wetback - Johnny Reb - Spic - Kraut - Kraut - Nip - Chink - Gook - Nigger - Towelhead into thy bosom and grant him everlasting peace. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

We also implore you at this time to grant victory to our valiant and patriotic troops who even now face terrible danger in the battle. Lord, hear our prayer. In victory, let our boys kill their boys. Let bullets and bayonets rip into their young flesh. Let them be buried by the salvos of our artillery. Let them know anguish on the battlefield. And if they should survive, let them know disease and infection as they writhe in torment. Let their widows water their cemeteries with their tears. Let their orphanages fill. Let their families be broken asunder and their members lost to one another. Let their grandmothers know grief. Let their children roam their lands without hearth or home. Let them stand exposed to scorching Sun in the summer and the battering wind in the winter. Let their treasure be plundered. Let their roads be clogged with refugees. Let their fields be sewn with salt. Let their land be parched and turned to dust. Let their rivers be clogged with the bloated corpses of their dead. Let the mountain snow be stained with their blood. Let their sky never know daylight again. Let a darkness descend upon their future, nay onto the last generation. Let their hearts be rendered into torment...

As ours have been rendered into torment. O Lord, in thy wisdom, you have let us know fear, you have let us know hate, you have let us know doubt....

This boy who lies before us, we know, O Lord, that he had mother, father, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandmothers, and grandfathers. We know he came into this world screaming at the great unknown. We know that he went to school, succeeded at times, failed at others. We know that he ate, drank, slept, played, danced, sang, swam, ran, explored, questioned, misbehaved. We know that he wept and laughed. We know that girls both exhilarated him and made him nervous. We know that he learned to shave. And we know that someone in a uniform from a distant capital put a gun in his hand, pointed, and said, "There, go shoot at them." We know that he was scared. We know that he died.

But as we ask you to take him into thy bosom, we secretly wish you wouldn't. We have come to give him a proper funeral, and we desire nothing more to spit in his cold face. We hate him. In thy infinite wisdom, we do hate him. And all the others like him.

Because.

He dared be different from us. And being different, he did not accept - nay, embrace! - the opportunity to become like us. To become one of us. He saw and did not see kindness but rather a hideous monster to be feared. Fear us?! We do not understand this, O Lord, and we ask your guidance.

Because.

He dared challenge us. He did not recognize our supremacy. He did not know that we bestride the world like a colossus. He did not know that we were right. That we have always been right. And that we will always be right. We are right because we are so strong. The truth of this is self-evident. Many have challenged that truth. Many have fallen.

Because.

In a blinding moment on a beautiful day, we lost innocence. We lost hope. We lost our future. We lost dreams. We lost ourselves. And someone must pay, O Lord. Even if this boy was not responsible for that moment, even if he was a world away, even if he wished for nothing more than a bowl of ice cream, he had to pay. Because someone must. He was not the first, and he certainly will not be the last. We thought we were safe. We were wrong. We thought we could stand apart from the world. We were wrong. We thought that innocence and happiness were the natural order of things. We were wrong. We thought the centuries stretched before us like never-ending summer days. We were wrong. We thought You, Lord, favored us above all others. We did not think that we were the same in Your eyes as everyone else. We thought You were on our side. We were wrong.

Because.

We are ordinary, fallible, preferred no more or less than any other.  An entire nation on the road to Damascus. But instead of learning of our especial place in Thy realm, we stumbled upon a much bitterer epiphany. We stand according to strengths and fall according to our weaknesses. As it has been for everyone before us and everyone after us. Forgive us our anger, O Lord, but this will be a hard lesson to learn and accept. Many will suffer before it has been learned. Before it has been accepted.

Because.

Not far from here, some of our boys lie in silence. They had mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, grandmothers, and grandfathers. That they too came into this world screaming at the great unknown. They went to school, succeeded at times, failed at others. They ate, drank, slept, played, danced, sang, swam, ran, explored, questioned, misbehaved. We know that they wept and laughed. That girls both exhilarated them and made them nervous. We know that they learned to shave. And we know that someone in a uniform from a distant capital put a gun in their hands, pointed, and said, "There, go shoot at them." We know that they were scared. We know that they died.

Because.

There has been grief. And there will be more grief. Grief, pain, suffering, and loss. And it will not end until our thirst for battle slackens, until the fires of righteousness and vengeance have cooled, until there are no more tears in the world to be shed. Until that miracle when the son you have lost can come up that walk back home. When he will smile at you, and hug you, and say, "It has been a long time. I have missed you mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, grandmother, grandfather. Not until that day. Not until that day! Not until....     [There is a long pause.]

VOICE #2

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. We cannot escape history. We will be remembered in spite of ourselves. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor to the last generation. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth." Abraham Lincoln, State of the Union Address, 1862. Amen.

© 2006, Anthony P. Pennino.

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About Prof. Anthony P. PENNINO:

Anthony P. Pennino is a Professor of English at New Jersey City University, where he teaches British and American Literature as well as Creative Writing. During the 2005-6 academic year, he served as Chair of the English Department there. Pennino is a published playwright; his adaptation of an Anton Chekhov novella, Story of an Unknown Man, has just been released by New York Theatre Experience in an anthology entitled Playing with Canons. His work has been seen in New York City and across the United States as well as in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Germany. He is the recipient of a 2005 Fellowship from the New Jersey Council for the Arts. Pennino holds a Ph.D. in Dramatic Literature from the University of London, and an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Columbia University.