Support Our Troops

In my early youth, I developed a fondness for the poetry of e.e. cummings. Reading the World Book Encyclopedia article about him back then, I found these lines:

His style reflects his thinking, which was fiercely independent and vastly amused. His poetic eccentricities remained unchanged over the years. They marked him as a happy, unashamed, one-man romantic movement.

The writer of those lines was one "John Holmes," whom I assume to be the John Clellon Holmes who gained fame as a Beat novelist. The Beats, of course, were a late resurgence of what one might call a Byronic variety of Romanticism--larded with irony.

At any rate, fond of cummings (not to mention the Beats), I am often reminded of one of his poems when I find myself stuck in traffic behind a vehicle bearing a "support our troops" bumper-sticker; the poem is i sing of Olaf glad and big. Here it is:

i sing of Olaf glad and big

whose warmest heart recoiled at war:

a conscientious object-or



his wellbelovéd colonel(trig

westpointer most succinctly bred)

took erring Olaf soon in hand;

but--though an host of overjoyed

noncoms(first knocking on the head

him)do through icy waters roll

that helplessness which others stroke

with brushes recently employed

anent this muddy toiletbowl,

while kindred intellects evoke

allegiance per blunt instruments--

Olaf(being to all intents

a corpse and wanting any rag

upon what God unto him gave)

responds,without getting annoyed

"I will not kiss your fucking flag"



straightway the silver bird looked grave

(departing hurriedly to shave)



but--though all kinds of officers

(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)

their passive prey did kick and curse

until for wear their clarion

voices and boots were much the worse,

and egged the firstclassprivates on

his rectum wickedly to tease

by means of skilfully applied

bayonets roasted hot with heat--

Olaf(upon what were once knees)

does almost ceaselessly repeat

"there is some shit I will not eat"



our president,being of which

assertions duly notified

threw the yellowsonofabitch

into a dungeon,where he died



Christ(of His mercy infinite)

i pray to see;and Olaf,too



preponderatingly because

unless statistics lie he was

more brave than me:more blond than you.




Copyright 1931, © 1959, 1991 by the Trustees for E. E. Cummings Trust. Copyright © 1979 by George J. Firmage, from The Complete Poems: 1904-1962 by E. E. Cummings. Reprinted by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

I support anyone of our troops with the moral courage to lay down his or her weapons and refuse to participate in our unlawful and immoral wars being waged in Iraq and Afghanistan. I understand well the predicament that many of them are in--joining the military out of economic necessity. Poverty is a bad thing--I know: even though I would consider myself to have lived a life of economic privilege, I fell on hard times in the early 1980's (thank you Ronald Reagan) and once had to sell my car just to pay the rent. A growling stomach, crying children, the disrespect shown the poor in this country, all conspire to drown the voice of conscience. But James R. Lowell had it right:

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

Let our brave troops show this kind of courage, and the world will sit up and take notice.