The American Soldier

I was in a living room. There was the mother of a soldier who had just returned from Iraq sitting on a chair. She was leaning to one side and holding a plate with a large piece of meat. I looked closely at the meat and saw it was very tender. She was not eating much of it. I could see her son dressed in his military uniform. It seemed like it was being lifted from a hole in the ground, almost like a grave. There was a wound on his left shoulder with a blood-soaked bandage covering it. The soldier’s mother was pouring water over his injury. Sitting opposite the soldier and his mother was his whole platoon. They were all eating plates of meat.