Dear Mr. Deaton:

Last week, as I was thinking about the war in Iraq, I ended up writing a poem entitled, A Soldier. It pretty well sums up my feelings about the entire situation........ regarding the Bush Administration, its lies, and what I feel to be a rampant disregard for the preciousness of human life.  Feel free to use my piece however you would like in order to move our world toward peace and love. 

A Friend In The Name Of Peace And Love,
Doug Soderstrom, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
Wharton College

A Soldier

Not a sacred warrior, 
Nor with a bayonet blessed by God, 

Not even a human being, 
Just a simple peasant….. a surrogate, 
A sacrificial lamb, a frightened child, 
Chosen by the rich to be an instrument of war, 

A cold-blooded, battle-trained beast, 
A mindless savage ordered to kill, 

A molded piece of steel, an object……. a gear, 
A very small cog in a far-reaching engine of death, 
An insignificant fleck in the overall fabric of life, 

A negligible notch on the handle of an enemy’s gun, 
A mere afterthought for those who extol the wonders of war, 
An unkempt grunt, 
A lonely gutted, blood-spattered corpse lying on the ground, 
Something like the trivial crush of dead dog on a lonely country road, 
Dead meat…………. with a tin tag, 

A sacred breath of life having been stripped from its mother’s womb, 
A father’s pride…. his very best friend, 
Someone whose name is Abdul, Mohammed, Ishmael, Ibrahim, or Hassan, 
Or then again…….. perhaps even Mike, John, Mark, Eddy, Ben, or Bill, 
A world diminished by the loss of another precious child! 
 

Doug Soderstrom, Ph.D. 
Professor of Psychology 
Wharton County Junior College 
Wharton, Texas 77488 
College Phone: (979) 532-6451 
Home Phone: (979) 532-0990 
email: dougsod@wcjc.edu 
 “A Soldier” written on September 5, 2004