Check this video of Tell Mama by country / folk singer Shawn Pander. It’s quite moving, from the point of view of a soldier in Iraq twelve days from shipping home. He’s seen too much blood, too much death, too many mangled friends, and doesn’t know if he can ever be the same again.
From the lyrics
I’m not the same
tell my darling little girl
daddy had to go away
I just couldn’t touch her face
using hands that I’ve killed with
Pander is donating all proceeds from the song the the Veterans of Foreign Wars Foundation, where I found this startling quote, given it’s on a highly patriotic site.
“When a family is about to be evicted while its breadwinner is defending our country, well, that’s reprehensible.”
– R. Lee Ermey
When the VFW is posting quotes like that, you know the populace is solidly opposing the war. Yet Congress continues to fund the war, even if Democrats pretend to oppose it with toothless resolutions. Meanwhile, US soldiers and Iraqis continue to be maimed and killed.
‘Tell Mama’ isn’t so much a political song, but more of a scream from the working class that the price they are paying, dead bodies and mangled, broken soldiers coming back from Iraq, is a price they can no longer pay.