A rchive Date
[ 05-04-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Terrorism ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/coren.html
Blood in the street
By MICHAEL COREN -- Sun Media
April 5, 2003
I can't forget. I won't forget. But I pray I'll never see it and live it again.
He was my age, my height, from a similar background. I'd opted for journalism, he'd chosen the army. And here we were, together on an obscure street in Northern Ireland: eternal puddles, a lasting set of grey clouds and grey living. Between the red fronted houses and sectarian flags were the greens and blacks of the British uniforms.
This young man looked left, right, up, down as he moved forward. Sometimes he would drop to a crouching position and aim his gun at a window or an open field, then rise again and move on. His comrades were spaced around, every 20 yards or so. One carried a large radio set on his back and communicated to other soldiers and to his base.
I'd seen all this so many times. So had the passers-by. What had seemed exciting at first had long ago become boring and commonplace. Until, that is, nothing was exciting or boring any more. Only terrifying.
It's always difficult to know where a shell or a bullet comes from. It can sound so close, but be so far away. Sounds like a crack and never like it should, like we think it will. It was confusion that first registered on his face. As though he wasn't sure what had happened. Not pain, not yet anyway. Nor did he fall. He crumpled, quite slowly. Began to look and feel all over his body.
Then he grasped his upper stomach, just below his chest. Between his fingers a claret ooze came, and soaked through his uniform. The red looked dark or black on his jacket, as though someone had thrown a drink over him.
VIOLENT SHAKING
Then he shook. His whole body shook, violently and without pause. He said nothing. His friends began to shout, and heavy boots could be heard running all over the street and kicking down doors. Within moments an armoured car and an ambulance could be seen and heard.
I'd been speaking to this man only minutes earlier, almost amused by his thick northern accent. We'd discussed soccer, and teased one another about the mutual mediocrity of our favourite teams. Now he was sitting up against a wall and his eyes were rolling, and he was mouthing something. I leaned closer.
"Someone's been hit," he said. "Quick, someone's been hit."
Men in uniform surrounded him and medics pushed their way through and ripped away at his clothes to find the wound. Then he said what I had thought was a movie cliche and didn't really happen in real life and real death.
"Mum," he said. Then the blood stopped pumping.
They took him away, flew him home and put a British flag on his coffin. He was buried with military honours. Mum was there, of course, and dad. And three sisters and two brothers. And aunts and uncles, cousins and nephews and nieces. Grandma and grandpa, friends and colleagues.
Standing behind the crowd, unwilling to go too close was a pretty young woman with a baby in her arms and a toddler holding her hand. Unlike so many of the others she was not crying. She kept very still and simply said the word "No" over and over again.
His wife and children. She'd had a crush on him at high school and they'd married as soon as they left. She was already pregnant. They didn't ask anything much from life. Just to be together. The little boy by her side looked up at her. Too young to know were his dad was, but too clever to think everything was as it should be.
Suicide bombs, smart missiles, friendly fire, bayonets, hand grenades, land mines, poison gas, lies, hatred, propaganda, profit, loss, exploitation, soldiers telling us tales on television, post-war trauma, orphans, dead mothers, agony, amputation, disability, death. Heroes at home, murder in the Middle East.
Don't tell me there was no other way. I know it's not true, because I've seen it too many times before. It solves nothing, never has and never will. Wasn't supposed to. The world was perfect, we brought war into it through the back door. Forgive us.
Michael Coren is a Toronto-based writer and broadcaster. He can be emailed at info@michaelcoren.com and his web site is michaelcoren.com. Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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