Through a bus window

A few years ago I boarded a bus in Rockland bound for Bangor. It was one of those steel-gray, pre-winter days that I think only Rockland can produce.

As the bus waited for its departure time I peered out the rain-streaked window to see a young soldier in army green being embraced by a woman, apparently his mother.

The boy looked about 18, tall, gaunt with a long, thin neck in an oversized shirt. His ears, ever so large, were bent at a 45-degree angle away from his head by the too-large uniform hat.

His mother, a short, thick woman, wore the perpetual grimace of a toothless person. Both shared the waxen complexion and sunken eyes of a lifetime of deprivation. Yet, for one fleeting moment, the firmament stood still, she was queen of the universe in her drab coat and department store shoes. She was seeing her young warrior off into a strange new world, beyond Rockland, even beyond Bangor.

Today, I wonder how many of these mothers are bidding farewell to the little nobodies from all over Nowhere, U.S.A. So many, more than willing, to do the bidding of the somebodies from Somewhere, U.S.A.

Little people, from ghettos to the hick towns, each with their own sectional lower-class vernacular. All of the “ain’t got no ammunition” to “Hi, mom, see you soon” types. I wonder how many of them last August could find Kuwait on a topographical map, much less spell the name. There never seems to be a shortage of nobodies’ children for a somebody’s crusade.

If we, as a nation, are riding a runaway locomotive into the inferno, then let us all anoint our bodies with oil and gird our loins for battle. Let us offer up our sons and daughters from the Hamptons to suburbia. From the monolithic housing projects to the rundown trailers on the deadend roads.

Let us ask for and receive the blessings of the Congress and then all of us join in the fray together. When the war is over and we have all bathed in the blood of Saddam, remember to share in the plunder. If we are mercenaries, then double the pay of all of our Desert Shield military upon the first act of hostilities. To the wounded go their compensation, to the families of the dead go theirs to salve over the pain of their losses.

Surely, the grateful nations of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq will be more than happy to reward their protectors and liberators.

Above all, when it’s time to hand out the triangular folded flag at the gravesite, let it be handed to the short, thick woman with the toothless grimace and one also to the statuesque matron of the arts. Vangel Asimakopoulos Orono