Here we go- 1943

1943

Donald Hall

The toughened us for war. In the high-school auditorium

Ed Monahan knocked out Dominick Esposito in the first round

of the heavyweight finals, and ten months later Dom died

 in the third wave at Tarawa. Every morning of the war

our Brock- Hall Dairy delivered milk from horse-drawn wagons

to wooden back porches in southern Connecticut. In winter,

frozen cream lifted the cardboard lids of glass bottles,

Grade A or Grade B, while marines bled to death in the surf,

or the right engine faltered into Channel silt, or troops marched

-what could we do?-with frostbitten feet as white as milk.

This poem is a reflection upon World War II, which I find quite appropriate being that Donald Hall was alive during that era. As he is talking about the destruction amidst the boys out fighting for our freedom, our lives in America go on as normal as they possibly can. "Every morning of the war our Brock-Hall Dairy delivered milk from horse-drawn wagons to wooden back porches in southern Connecticut."

Often times, we are unable to see the damage that war presents until we are DIRECTLY affected. There are boys over in Iraq fighting for us but we remain unaffected so therefore- we go on our lives in complete normalcy. That is where it becomes difficult because we strive to thinking about our soldiers but we will never be able to fully grasp what this war has done in its aftermath unless we have been in the crossfire. For example, a couple at my Church recently lost their son because he was a soldier who was killed in Iraq. For them this war is a complete and total reality, they personally have been through the repercussions that war brings. We need to not take for granted the wonderful lives our soldiers have allowed us to have, they have given us safety.

Sometimes the struggle is trying to find something that we can do here in the states that is of value close enough to what the soldiers are doing for us in Iraq. Hall states, "while marines bled to death in the surf, or the right engine faltered into Channel silt, or troops marched -what could we do?- with frostbitten feet as white as milk." THAT is where the true struggle lies, what can we do to help? They are achieving so much, and working so hard- for whom? We CANNOT take our freedom for granted... we cannot under any circumstance.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."