From Then to Now; A Reflection on the War

The following monolgues are excerpts from a longer one-woman show. The piece is a multi-media performance and consists of videos and monologues based on the history of the war, interviews and personal reflections.

"A Soldier's Guilt"
Carlos: My name is Carlos Vasquez. I'm 29 years old and before I enlisted I was working as a mechanic in my older brother's shop. The recruiter saw me and said all the right things. You know, we're gonna get you out of this town, we'll give you money for school. There's gonna be all these neat things you can do. It'll be an adventure. Like in a movie or some shit. I got told it was the American Way. A right of passage for a real man. To serve and protect my country. It was my destiny and my duty. And I believed all that stuff. It sounded pretty damn good. I fell for all of it. But once you've got that contract signed man, once they've got that piece of paper you've got an obligation. And the only way to fulfill that obligation is to do whatever they say whenever they say to do it. The only response is "yes sir," and when they say "fire," that's what you do. For me to actually be there, I mean to see the things that I saw -- I saw some really terrible things -- and then I almost died. I almost died man. It was pandemonium, and the Iraqi women and children they were running all around me and the looks on their faces -- the screaming -- I still have nightmares about that. The way they looked at me. And then I felt this terrible pain in my leg and I went down and I stayed down. I thought "this is it. This is where I die." I lay there up against that wall and I just prayed for it to be over. I could hear the shooting and the screaming and I just closed my eyes and I pressed myself up against that wall -- like I was trying to become part of it or something you know? And then the shooting died down and my Sergeant found me I don’t know how long later. We hadn’t lost anyone. No casualties. Just my leg. But then I looked into the street -- into the middle of it all -- and I saw all the dead civilians. People that had no say in the matter. People that had no weapons. People that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I'm tellin' you man, you can have all the college money that you want, all the honorable discharges you want, but the fact that you were in a war, so criminal and so immoral, and you did nothing to prevent your participation -- not all the money in the world, not all the education in the world is going to erase that guilt.

"A Soldier Speaks"
Millford: I've been over there twice already and I'll be going back in a month. I'm proud to be there. I'm proud to go back. I'm proud of what we've accomplished there and what we'll continue to accomplish. You don’t hear about that though. That's what kills me. Yes, a lot of people have died. But to come home and to only hear about the casualties...to have to listen to the politicians talk about "support the troops" and speak in our name as though they know what it's like to be there day in and day out. To make it sound like it's been some kind of waste. Like we're not doing anything. I'm not saying there haven’t been terrible things done over there. Lives have been lost -- on both sides. But that's not what it's all about. That's not all there is. I've seen children that never would have been able to go before we got there, going into schools carrying books with smiles on their faces. I've dug trenches with my own hands so that pipes can be run into towns that didn’t have running water before I dug that trench. My unit built a hospital. An entire hospital -- I built it with my own hands. Where else could I do something like that? Find me another place where I could do so much good for so many people. I'm not saying this cuz I think I'm some kind of big hot shot hero. I just wish this country heard both sides. I wish the media showed that once in a while. I've lost good men and women -- good friends -- to this war. And I fear death just as much as the next guy. But when this is all over, when I finally come home for good -- I'm going to know that I did something real with my life. And I'm going to feel good about that. How many people can say that?

By: Shira Cahn-Lipman