Sunday, March 28, 2004

I ended 'Tracers' tonight. For those of you who are not familiar with it, it's a play originally concieved and developed by some Vietnam vets in the 1980's as a way to help over come the experiences they went through in the war. Each character corresponds to one of the original members. The play started simply as sessions in which the members would tell war stories and sing songs, it slowly grew into the play that it become.

The show is intense. That's all that can be said about it. It's a roller coster ride of humorous moments that quickly break down into deep somber moments to horrorfingly intense moments.

As for me; it was one of the coolest theatre experiences of my life. Sometimes, when the art is really on its toes, its doing what art should so often times do: make people think. I don't think that anyone who left the theatre after the three performances we did could have not been affected in some way. Some people loved the show, others hated it, but as one woman was quoted as saying: "I'm going home tonight and I'm going to be doing alot of thinking before I go to bed tonight."

We did the show, not for an anti-war message, though it's possible that there are those that could see it as that, but to remember that there was a time in our history, that soldiers, men who were drafted, or who enlisted went and experienced horrible things, fighting a war that they did not fully understand, and then came home and were treated like shit by other people who did not fully understand the war and did not have the same experiences and could not understand.

We've become a cynical nation. The idea of duty and honor no longer seem relevenant or even realistic to most Americans. This is most likely rooted to the cold war, and the protest of the Vietnam war. Though to our credit, we do have some respect, or at least
feign respect. I wonder how long it will last?


"Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent."
-Issac Asimov


"In war there is no prize for the runner-up."
-General Omar Bradley


"They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason."
-Ernest Hemmingway


"Are bombs the only way of setting fire to the spirit of a people? Is the human will as inert as the past two world-wide wars would indicate?"
-Gregory Clark


"It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it."
-General Douglas MacArthur


"You know the real meaning of PEACE only if you have been through the war."
-Kosovar


"Only the dead have seen the end of war."
-Plato

I live in a dream land
a wonderland
caught in the nexus of memory
and the grim reality of the present
I long for things that have passed
and wish to once again
stoke the fires of companionship
dependency that has waned
I weep bitterly
things that are lost
gone forsaken feelings
that can never be rekindled
the ether cloud of doubt
for the fires that have died
will never cease
and the longing
does not pass with each day
only more intense does it grow
the outcropping of foolish ignorance
creeps upon me
tendrils of loathing for self
and love
wax with the fantastic desires
that blind mens furies and
kill the beautious demons
that dance in my minds eye
with each moment in glee