Americans want to blame someone for a military failure namely an intelligence failure or strategic failure but in this case (as well as in Iraq) the failure belongs to America, the people.

War is ugly and often collateral damage results in the death of innocent civilians. War should be ugly or it would be too easy to make the decision to wage it but our American culture does not have the stomach for it. Our military leaders did not have an opportunity to develop an effective strategy because the American people did not like the ugliness of it.

Thermobaric weapons…

Heavy legs churning weighed down and burning- running from bullets, bees buzzing. Lungs ache and choking- you’ve got to be joking- the pathway stretches away. Like a spy scope extending…

A part of the whole- just as equal, just as important. Some how different- unwanted, repulsive. Clinging to the greater good- but just outside the norm. Individual- standing out for…

The gun-hand rode hard. Thunder of gunfire behind. Chasing faint dreams, seeking freedom.

The gun-hand rode hard. Thunder of hooves behind. Pursued by death, losing ground.

The gun-hand rode hard…

Bound by shattered dreams, lives, bodies- forsaken and forgotten. Cast aside. Cast away. Abandoned- each an island, links in a chain. Broken. Bound by shattered lives, like glass- shards, shrapnel…

All-seeing eyes spot shadows and specters; phantoms that hide- in plain sight. Ears hear the murmurs, the lies, and the rumors- spoken from sides of the mouth. Gathering whispers, in…

Unassuming and soft spoken yet one of three Hydra heads. The Imagination of the Beast, the other two, faces of War. A believer but not true, not radical. Rhetoric, a…

Looking down from high horses at grovelers grounded in simple rhymes muddled in their grotesque simplicity but there are times when a rhyme elevates words you hear with your sophisticated…