Whose Precious Blood and Future is Not Yet Shed

From Military Families Speak Out Website

This poem was written by Rosemarie Dietz Slavenas, whose son First Lt. Brian Slavenas was killed in Iraq on November 2, 2003 when the Chinook helicopter he was piloting was shot down in Falluja.


When I see the blood of my beloved son
Running out on desert sand
Before help arrived, too late.

There he lay for half an hour
Helicopter shot down in Iraq,
Where, for reasons of conscience,
He had sought not to be.

When I see red, I see
an ever widening pool
of Brian's precious blood
I am blinded with grief never felt before.

He calls to me, Mother!
Why did you let me come to this?
I, whose heart beat a rapid rhythm
Against your ribs?

Why did you stand and say good-bye?
Why did you not cry, No! Don't go!
And keep me from danger
As you did when I was small?
Why did you stand and watch me go?
And fiddle while Baghdad was bombed?
Did you think some other child
Would die, not I?

My future was traded for oil
Now used to bribe lost allies
Too honorable for reckless slaughter.
God draws no line in the sand.

My blood was shed by heedless men
Hate-filled, who cast aside the UN,
Old allies, and the world's good will
To rush to cruel war.

You weep too late, dear Mother!
Light a candle for the son or daughter
Whose precious blood and future
Is not yet shed.

Pray for peace and deliverance from
Lying leaders fighting terror with terror
Let justice roll down like waters
And wash this evil from our land.