Such a Race we are, my friend - we are a Race, indeed.
You and I…how easily our blood has seeped,
‘midst the gore of wars,
of insane battles fought on this or that field,
or shore.
Do you remember me? I was there.

I was there at Actium that forlorn morn
and felt the heated blade of Vipsanius
tear the fibers of my flesh…
his rage unbound
against that Queen for whom we marched.

I was there at Megiddo
when mighty Thutmose, backed by Egypt’s might,
broke into the skull
of this unfortunate Canaanite.

I was there at Chaeronea,
abreast with the Macedonian…
and reveled in the gore
when Philip crushed the hearts and spleens
of Athens and Thebes.

And when at Zama
the men of Rome rampaged and set adrift
the heads from bodies of the hordes
led by our great Lord Hannibal,
I was there!
I was there to receive the thrust of spear into my lung,  
and shiver as the iron sword parted me
from the world of the living.
Yes I was there!

And again,
at Hastings, at Marathon and Agincourt,
at Thermopylae and Granicus,
at Megalopolis and Tobruk,
I was there.

I was there,
with Alexander and Darius Codomannus,
with Xerxes and Perdiccas,
with Batis and others,
dying a thousand deaths
in the mud and slime and the smell of the Ever After
in my head.

I was there with the Persians,
I was there with the Spartans,
I was there with the legions of the greatest Khan,
and I was there with the stalwarts of the clans of the north.

I was there at Karbala on the day of Muharram
to die at the hand of a Shiite brother.

I was there at Waterloo,
left entangled ‘midst the other dead
to await the coming of the vultures
that feed on unseeing eyes;
indeed a legacy of the Emperor.

I was there,
on a thousand fields, whose names have gone
with a thousand-fold who fell on them—
Pelium and Samarkand,
The Lygnius and Issus,
The Hydaspes and Arigaeum—
shattered in the dust, the sand and the rain.
I was there!

I was there,
when the ships of Hispania set upon my shores,
and my Lord King of the Sun was duped
by a body of men representing their god,
but who came to steal the gold from my children
and to put me to rest forever
in the mountaintops of the Inca.

I was there,
forward line marching, breast exposed
in the battles of the Sengoku Jidai,
clashing weapon with weapon
in the Age of Warring Daimyos.

At Plessey in India,
in China and Spain,
at Gettysburg and Culloden,
I was there!
At Bannockburn and Flodden,
at Glencoe, Guam, and El Alamein,
I was there!

And on that day in history,
that singular day when a million men fell,
gutless and engrailed and peppered
with the marks of steel on flesh,
I was there
in the killing fields of the Somme. 

I was there when hell rained down from the skies
over the hapless innocents
huddled in Rome’s ancient Londinium,
and, yes, I was there, too,
when in retaliation to Wagner’s Blitzkrieg
that hurricane of vengeance from the West
sprayed pretty patterns of death across the Ruhr.

I was there at Tra Binh Dong, Khe Sanh, and the Tet,
dying again and again,
sometimes within the rabbit warrens,
sometimes clipped to a full metal jacket
made by Uncle Sam and his relatives.

I was there, oh yes! I was there,
when the race of cousins, untied by a common father,
bled each other to a pointless oblivion
on the Heights above the Holy Sea,
on the desert plains of the Prophet’s Exodus,
and in the skies that scanned the City of Solomon.

And now, I am there,
in the land of the Afghan, in the cities of Mesopotamia,
in the ranks of the killers and the killed in Somalia,
and in the tribal battles of Soweto,
gasping a last agonized breath
as the burning Necklace of rubber sears my
skin already black.  

I will never not be there,
I will ever go ungentle into the night,
gung-ho and afraid, confused and certain,
purposeful and tentative,
but always there,
to do your bidding, to fight your war,
Hindu and Jew, Christian and Muslim,
for believers and the non, alike.

I will follow the crusade,
I will roar for the Jihad;
In the name of the Holy Almighty
I will kill and be killed.
I will wander across the fields,
spread, festooned, with the smorgasbord of dismembered limbs,
and add my own to them.

I will follow the Hammer and Sickle,
I will march behind the Stars and Stripes,
I will die for the Crescent Moon and the Wheel of Asoka.
And I will bear down on the enemies of my people
as I hail the Star of David.
I will shut out reason
and turn aside when my heart tells me it is wrong
to be there.

For was I not told that God was on our side?
Was I not told that ours was the just side?
Was I not told that my sacrifice
would bring peace and democracy and stability
to a nation torn by strife? That by my death
a multitude would be freed from oppression?
Did I not believe the grand words and rhetoric
of Kings and Presidents, of learned men,
of dictators, benign and other,
and of the leaders of the world?  

And in the future, in the coming of eternity,
when as virgin boy and as man of a countless scars
I enter into yet another bout of bloodletting
and offer myself to the whims and ideologies of
those ensconced safely behind their desks
in places far away from the havoc of life,
I will be there to fall onto a patch of mud
and kiss my life goodbye.
I will witness the weapons of doom
as they render me from my soul.
I will never hear, nor ever see the flashes of death
that begin beyond the horizon
and come at me cloaked in the darkness
of night.
But I will be there to receive them
into my bosom.

Then, because we are such a Race, my friend,
- a Race, indeed -
monuments will be built and raised,
in stone and metal;
walls bearing my name will commemorate
me as hero and warrior.
I will be championed as liberator.
I will be extolled as patriot and son of the nation;
legends and poems will be written,
and days of the year will be set aside
for the wearing of flowers and ribbons
while words will be spoken in prayer and hushed whispers.

And for a short while,
a brief, brief spell,
some of you,
very few,
will remember
that
I was there.