What Have They Done To My Corps

My old friend Wes is walking the last mile of his life. Age, lung cancer, a broken back and now pneumonia have left him pretty near death. I get by a couple of days a week to visit but there's not much to talk about. That's an odd feeling because we always had healthy and spirited discussions about everything from religion to politics and everything in between. We never really agreed about anything...well there is one thing and that one thing is this Bush war in Iraq.

Wes was a Marine, to be exact, a member of the United States Marine Corps. He got wet on the beaches of Iwo Jima, Saipan and several other unfriendly islands during WWII, and came home, much to his surprise, without a wound, well not a wound you could see, but one he would carry up to the present.

The other day, prior to the media frenzy over the death of Anna Nicole Smith, I dropped by to visit and as I entered the room I saw that he was crying...big tears rolling down his face. I asked him what was wrong, a question that I immediately was kinda dumb, I mean the guy is dying. He pointed to the TV which was looping video of young Marines in some city in Iraq kicking in doors and searching civilian homes. Women and children, frightened into silence stood by as these young Marines tore their homes apart and arrested their men. In a barely audible voice he said, "What have they done to my Corps? What have they done?"

I had no idea what to say, I just picked up the remote and surfed until I came upon a rerun of Sanford & Son. We sat in silence for an hour and I left. Later that day they took him by ambulance to the hospital. What have they done to his Corps?