TOBY HARTBARGER

from Morning Dies ©Toby Hartbarger, Music ©Ritsu Katsumata

I joined the Army in high school. Within a year of graduating from high school I was choking down sand in the desert in Iraq. I served one 15-month tour in Najaf, Sadr City, Baghdad, Fallujah, and Al Kut. The major turning point for me, the moment that made me say "I'm not going to just try and forget this," was when a 1st sergeant handed me an ammo can of 240 rounds - the same blood-stained 240 rounds that my best friend had been using when he was shot and killed in an ambush. He was on a patrol that he wasn't supposed to be on; he was killed one day after the date we were told we were going to be back home.

I keep thinking back to a people who are suffering, starving, and dying for corporate profit. I think about a seven-year-old Iraqi child standing in a foot of sewage holding out his hand for anything that I can give him. I think about the cries of "no water, no electricity" as I drove down the streets of Baghdad.

Is it possible to not mind the 240 that I have aimed at your children?
Never mind the fear, and propaganda, and cameras, and mics that are aimed at you;
never mind the homeless in the streets; nevermind the decline of the middle class;
never mind the decline of the lower class. Life would be so nice if I didn't mind.

TOBY HARTBARGER