Outraged by American military intervention in the Phillipines, Mark Twain wrote The War Prayer in March 1905 and sent it to Harper's Bazaar. This women's magazine rejected it for being too radical, and it wasn't published until after Twain's death ~ when World War I made it even more timely. It appeared in Harper's Monthly, November 1916 ~ two years before November 11th, 1918, Armistice Day, and the end of WW I " the war to end all wars ".
How fitting this Veteran's Day 2007 that we are reminded of the true human cost ( On a typical day in Iraq, 2 American soldiers die, along with 450 Iraqis. And now the U.N. is reporting that 5,000 children are dying every day from dirty water, and we don't say a word ) of our tragic and senseless illegal war and occupation of Iraq ~ by perhaps our most beloved and celebrated American writer ~ with the hope that war as we now know it will finally truly be outlawed by a world which can no longer resist its innate urge to unite.
Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2007/11/12.html
The War Prayer
by Mark Twain
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen .........
.. (*After a pause.*) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak ! The messenger of the Most High waits!"
Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2007/11/12.html
Freelance Online columnist Allen L Roland is available for comments , interviews and speaking engagements ( allen@allenroland.com )
