9/11: Four Years On...
Tomorrow is September 11, 4th anniversary of the the World Trade Centre bombings in America.
I bet there is will be obligatory pictorial/editorial post in the major newspapers, and 'CNN special' on the telly filled with montages and heart-wrenching commentaries.
For the cynics, they'll probably remind us that not a lot has changed since then: Bush is still fumbling in the dark, Osama is still at large, terrorism acts are getting more and more intense. And the fighting in Iraq is still going on as we speak.
I was reading Sue Townsend's latest book, where towards the end, the protagonist's family mourns the loss of a close friend killed in the line of fire in Iraq.
The book ends with a poem by English soldier and poet Siegfried Sassoon:
Survivors
No doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and strain
Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk
Of course they're 'longing to go out again,' -
These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk.
They'll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed
Subjection to the ghost of friends who died, -
Their dreams that drip of murder, and they'll be proud
Of glorious war that shatter'd all their pride...
Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;
Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.
(Siegfried Sassoon, October 1917)
For an excellent site for 9/11 news and pictures, check out September11news.com.
For the wiki on Siegfried Sassoon, read here.
To read some of his works via Project Gutenberg, go here.