Petition to save BFPO
A correspondent has alerted me to this petition set up to save the BFPO scheme within Europe. For those who don't know BFPO is a service which allows people to send letters or parcels to serving members in the armed forces based overseas for the same price as UK postage. It's a vital service not just for the essentials but for things like care packages which are hugely important in keeping up morale. Yes, even those not containing donkey porn!The latest proposal seems to be to remove it for troops serving in Europe. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the conflicts we as a country are engaged in these are OUR young men and women who deserve all the support we can give them. Signing the petition will take just a moment of your time, yet mean so much to all the members of the armed forces, their friends, families and loved ones.
Reposted from April '08
The covenant is broken.
In this so called war on terror there are many victims, but few so hidden as us. Those who love those who fight. So quietly it seems few have noticed, lives are being destroyed, people fall by the wayside as yet more promises are broken. In a forgotten war, happening only on flickering screens in corners of rooms, diluting, distancing. Sanitising.
The covenant is broken.
To fight in this war means constant danger. Danger impossible to understand by those of us safe and sound. Those they protect. Those they believe in. Those they love. Those they are kept from by never ending pressures in faraway places with faraway names
The covenant is broken.
Danger with no end. Sights seen, so impossibly real they return. Over. over. over again. Haunting both day and night. I trace the scars. Flesh, once so perfect and unmarred. Raised and pitted as it heals. A round entry wound. Marks a moment I cannot kiss better. No matter how I try.
The covenant is broken.
Pain wracks me. Sobs so powerful I cannot suppress them bend me in double. Never knowing if he is alive or dead.
The covenant is broken.
Today, tomorrow? News reports I cannot bear to watch. Can't bear not to. Real, brutal, horrifying. No safety screen when a moment's edit may reveal the face of those you love. Amongst broken bodies of proud men and women no-one wants to remember.
The covenant is broken.
I can still smell his scent on the pillow. Sheets still marked with the pattern of our love making. The familiar, comforting aroma of tobacco lingers. By the time that disappears he will be long since gone. An empty place in the fabric of daily life. Gone but not forgotten. Absence marked by all manner of trivial daily events. The empty chair at every meal.
The covenant is broken.
I hope, one day he will be home. I hope I can help him. For who else will?
The covenant is broken.
1 comments:
Consider it done :)
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