What Have I Done

I am here between the then and the now The little man in the bush wants to kill me The little man on campus calls me baby-killer My only brothers are dug-in next to me What have I done so wrong for so many to despise me Am I wrong for loving my country? Am I wrong for giving my life so that others won't have to? Am I wrong for watching my comrades die in pools of mud and blood, so that I may feel the spit of ignorance when I return home? Am I so naive that my beliefs are upside down? The rage wells within me. When so many, so far from here, cannot possibly understand why we are here; yet their anger causes me to question all that I have never questioned. I know that if they could see through my eyes for a single hour, respect would surely replace the hatred born of ignorance. They cannot know my strife. They cannot know how their hatred burns cruelly in my belly. Yet I fight and die to defend them and their freedom to hate me. What irony this is. Fanaticism and ignorance are forever busy - and need feeding. They feed on my blood and the blood of my comrades. I fight for them, but moreover, I fight for those who know why I'm here. Those silent few whose moral courage strengthens me. And I fight for my brother, who I cannot see, but know where he is hiding. For I know he understands and he is with me. 1LT. Gary Conway, IGR-TC, TAC-OFCR