Those who wish to start wars

Before they start them from their desks

need to listen to the inglorious horror stories of the veterans

Those veterans 

Those amputees

Those doctors in military psych wards that treat people with PTSD.

They need to go to morgue and smell the dead

They need to be immersed in images of those shattered 

Torn

Eviscerated 

Decapitated 

Tortured to death.

They need to experience all this

And know a small fraction of what war is…

And then they need to be taken to some barren place bereft of all life comforts

And beaten for days

Then brought back to life

Then maybe … feeling their scars for life

They can sit painfully

Horrified at a desk

And decide if men and women should be sent to be crippled 

And die.

Hopefully,

If they have an ounce of humanity and empathy left in them,

They will weep as never before

As they make that horrible decision. 

If they do not and cannot,

THEY should be the one’s to die in that moment.