Conflict

I couldn’t count them, lines of young Argentine men and boys coming towards, limping into Stanley. An overly large one was frog marching at the front; do I let him leave with honour, or do I callously put a bullet through his heart? I reluctantly feel a pang of respect and let him pass.
+++++The cacophonous bellows of a solitary cow sound from a mine field and in pain with its swollen udder. A trap! May be? Trading limbs for fresh milk, I think that shop is closed.
+++++Scattered rifles are stuck into soft peat soil by their muzzles, with wire hooked through their bullet chambers, linked like ring-a-ring-roses. Dare to sneeze. There are no weapons to salvage here; they’ve made sure of that.
+++++In the distance are sporadic bomb blasts as sheep are herded into mine fields. They explode like pop corn to the cheer of Para’s and Commando’s. Others take pot shots, shooting legs from seagulls for comedy style landings.
+++++I look to the sky as it starts to rain; it tastes the same as ever, and I wonder if these clouds have crossed England. I never thought I would miss my place of birth: the rain on tarmac: trees! What happened to the trees? But above all, I miss me. I will never be the same again.

A day of remembrance

Today I saw redundant soldiers limping in formation past a giant war memorial. The shadow of its cross stretched out onto the tarmac road: its shape reminiscent of an old fashioned Junker bomber that haunted the marchers with flash backs of days in black and white.
+++++They stood side by side in institution once again; severed neurons glued and identity resumed: if only for a while. A young bugler called the last post, before the thoughts of slamming torpedoes and bombs were replaced by slamming whiskeys and rums at the local village pub.
+++++Grievances long since aired and youth still familiar in the handshake of comrades, glistened in the eyes of friends and family. Will of iron succumbed to the flowing ethanol, as senses tricked the subconscious in to being young once again.
+++++I watched as one old soldier, sitting by himself, stood up and quickly saluted. No one laughed and glasses were instantly raised in silence: time again for reflection. Pleasantries resumed as if at the click of a button, with the talk of how this year’s speech in parts, reflected last year’s speech in part.
+++++But in another village around ten kilometres away: disparity: a compounded legacy. A widow stands in front of a new cenotaph all alone in the cold. She’s flowerless; her home a trolley full of junk and rags kept in plastic bags: souvenirs of good times, and each sentimental item laying trace to an album that book marks inside a photographic memory. She stoops, following the brail of contours with trembling fingers, stopping at her husband’s name and as if his crumbled bones are knitted in to the giant pillar: smooth like porcelain, entwined in his friends. He died in a much later war, leaving two sons that now run to the arms of carers. Vagrant and masochistic she revels, immersing herself in the past so as not to forget her lover, who traded the hearts and minds of his family to win the hearts and minds of a conquered nation.
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A word from Martin Shaw: I was born in 1964 Luton in Bedfordshire, second son to a journalist.  I plodded through school like a wilder beast without a care in the world, looking for easy water.  It was the same for all teenagers in those days.  We were the real ‘wasted youth,’ a rebellious lot that rode on the back of the anarchic punk music scene, dragged from the pretend delinquent New Yorkers like Iggy Pop and Lou Reed.  We fashioned ourselves in all things bright and sweaty, quelling the desire for anyone to mould and squeeze us in to round tent-peg holes.
+++++At seventeen I joined the army.  It seemed the right thing to do at the time for escapism.  I scraped through training helped by my newly found mates and an early morning yodelling training sergeant with a repetitive strain injury in his jaw.   They posted me to an air defence regiment once I showed my marching skills, before quick as a flash grenade I was bundled off to war with the rest of the boys.  We landed in the Falklands just as the Argentine land forces surrendered.  Their pilots thought otherwise by refusing to give in, but with the whole of their army doing a ‘come on down’ Lesley Crowther impression they had no choice but to fly home.
+++++There were booby traps everywhere, but not of the female variety, hence my deafness in one ear.   Two of us were caught in a blast; the other guy being nearly blown to pieces before I carried him back across a minefield.
+++++I did the rest of my stint as a superhero and came back from the southern hemisphere smiling, but it was deduced to be in a mad way and I was later diagnosed with PTSD- Post Traumatic Stress disorder.
+++++Upon leaving the army I had various jobs, always resulted in shifting heavy objects from one place to another.  Eventually I met my wife to be, Margaret.  We now have four kids, two with autism and two with the normal malfunctionings’ of spotty teenage-hood.
+++++We now live happily ever after in a house by the sea in sunny Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire
+++++I write early mornings and evenings as my heavy lifting work still dictates. This is the first time I have ever been published and I am honoured to be amongst the Spilling Ink select crowd.
+++++Here’s to you all, as I lift my goblet of wine : )