It’s my birthday and I'm 87!

This will be my first birthday alone, I think ever. Ruth called today to decry the fact that she can’t have my traditional birthday dinner. I commiserated with her, and metaphorically held her hand. I also promised that if I’m alive and well next year, I’ll fly home and stay at Orchard Hill Farm for my birthday with her and Samuel.

Recapitulating “My Stand” One More Time

Because it’s my birthday, and because that horrible world shaking event since tagged “9/11” took place on my 82nd birthday, I’m including the poem, “My Stand.” This is the fourth repeat, but I will not apologize because “My Stand” was sparked by a poem “The Stand” e-mailed to me by a friend. Fortunately, I have since lost “The Stand” in the move from Pine Needle Retirement Home to South Florida. I was incredibly angry when I read “The Stand” four years ago, because, and I am paraphrasing, it said that anyone who was against the war in Iraq was not patriotic.

Well, I’ve felt from the get-go That the Iraq war is, a foolish adventure waged by a foolish president, who was not elected to be president at least the first time around, who was elected by an equally foolish American people for a second term. Thus we risk repeating history. I say that “We, the people” and our foolish president risk repeating history because Vietnam, and the Spanish Armada should have given all of us great pause. The American people were fooled into going along with this misadventure, and for that, we must each take responsibility. We are all responsible, even those of us who did not agree, because we did not shout our opposition from the rooftops!

The war on Iraq is morally wrong. It stands in contrast to everything we say we believe in; God, peace, freedom, and democracy. Instead, we have destroyed a nation and killed thousands of women and children in the process. Additionally, Two-thousand-six-hundred-sixty-six of our own children have died in Iraq and over 19,945 have been wounded.

My opposition to this foolish war does not make me any less of a patriot than those who are for it. My memorial to 9/11 follows.

My Stand

Isaac Stolzfuts

I was born on September 11, 1919.
I was with my great grandchildren
On September 11th, 2001,
My eighty-second birthday.
We celebrated by playing together.
Drawing pictures, they told me what they saw,
The farm, our orchard, friends at school,
Their Mom and Dad.

Black space...

The TV’s white-noise-background
Suddenly stentorian to my mind
Though the anchor man’s voice
Even and measured announces
“APPARENT TERRORIST ATTACK...”
And, no longer laughing at play,
We watch "live" as thousands die.

It felt as though we were there,
Engulfed in that ebon cloud of dust,
The taste of death in our mouths.
Rebecca (named after her Grandma)
Cried, “That’s just a movie, Grandpa,
Right?” And Abe Junior said,
"Where are all the super heroes?
When we need-um!"
Well, the super heroes are in Iraq today,
Fighting for what they believe.
I pray for their safety even as
Mr. Bush claims to pray for peace.

I was born on September 11, 1919,
At the end of the flue epidemic, and World War One.
A Surreal world of horror both then and in 2001
Flowers and fireworks opposed to cinders and soot.
A world in which the lost lives of Iraq's
Women and children are not counted.
A world in which stolen artifacts
Testament to the beginning of civilization
Are casualties to Imperialist ambition.
A world in which a 21st century crusade has begun.

I do not believe in this war.
I do not believe in the "New American Century."

I do believe in a United States that stands for peace and trust.
I do believe in a United States that leads the world by GOOD example.
I do believe in a United States that bequeaths to the world
A vision of democracy and freedom.

Each American in Iraq is a hero and a patriot.
Each American who states his or her opinion
Opposing this war is also a hero and a patriot.

Dissent is one of the freedoms we believe in!
Would you have 225 years of national endeavor destroyed?
Do not call me anti-American.
Do not tell me that I did not suffer on September 11.
Do not tell me that I am not a patriot.

I was born on September 11, 1919.
My life always circled around “Nine Eleven.”
I am a child of “Nine Eleven.”
By birthright I am “Nine Eleven.”
I am freedom.
And, like Whitman I am part of you
And all of you are a part of me.
I am an American.
I don't believe in this war of American conquest, and
I am a 21st century American patriot!

Remember Them the Way They Used To Be


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*Rodric M. Rabbah,"Lost But Never Forgotten". "http://web.mit.edu/rabbah/www/pictures/wtc/ny_3.jpg" viewed Sunday, September 11, 2005, 10:40 AM EDT.


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