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Combining Fiction and Nonfiction

Texts in the AP English: Language and Composition Course

Dr. Randy S. Gingrich, Ph.D.

Cambridge High School, Fulton County Schools

AP Institute, October, 2013

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Freedom Synthesis Question Dr. Gingrich, AP Lang and Comp, Fall 2013

Introduction: “Since freedom embodies not a single idea but a complex of values, the struggle to define its meaning is simultaneously an intellectual, social, economic, and political contest. A morally charged idea, freedom has been used to convey and claim legitimacy for all kinds of grievances and hopes, fears about the present and visions of the future. At various times in our history it has served as a “protest ideal” and as justification of the status quo. Freedom helps bind our culture together and exposes the contradictions between what America claims to be and what America actually is.” Foner, Eric. The Story of American Freedom. New York, W.W. Norton, 1998.

In American society we have developed many contradictory views of freedom over the past four hundred years: many define it as a freedom from (oppression, racism, tyranny) while others define it as a freedom to (speak, trade, practice religion). Why is freedom so essential to Americans? Is our vision of freedom different from other countries? Has our view of freedom evolved over time? Is there a difference between our ideals of freedom and the actual practice of freedom? Prompt: Read carefully each of the following eight hyperlinked documents. Then in an essay that synthesizes at least three of those sources (you may paraphrase or directly quote those sources; use parenthetical documentation citing either the author’s last name or the letter of the source, Source A, Source B etc.) write an essay in which you support, refute, or qualify Foner’s claim that

Freedom helps bind our culture while simultaneously exposing the contradictions

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between what America claims to be and what America actually is. Examples in addition to the sources may come from experiences and observations, readings, and the media. Essays should also include four references to at least two of the works from this semester: The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Into the Wild by Jonathon Krakauer, and Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. Essays should be a maximum of 1500 words, six pages. Be sure to pay attention to the hyperlinked rubric.

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Synthesis Rubric for Freedom Essay, Take Home

Dr. Gingrich, AP Lang and Comp

Category 9/8 Effective

7/6 Adequate

5 Low Adequate

4 Inadequate

Claim/Argumentation Essays earning a score of 8 effectively take a position that defends, challenges, or qualifies the claim about freedom. 9 papers, in addition, are especially sophisticated in their argument.

6-Essay earning a score of 6 adequately take a position that defends, challenges, or qualifies the claim about freedom. 7 essays are distinguished by more complete or more purposeful argumentation and synthesis of cited source.

Essays earning a score of 5 take a position that defends, challenges, or qualifies the claim the claim about freedom.

Essays earning a score of 4 inadequately take a position that defends, challenges, or qualifies the claim about freedom.

Support They effectively support their position by effectively synthesizing at least three of the sources and two of the core readings. The writer’s argument is convincing, and the cited sources effectively support the writer’s position. 9 papers present more sophisticated synthesis of cited sources

They adequately synthesize and cite at least three sources and two core readings . The writer’s argument is generally convincing, and the cited sources generally support the writer’s position, but the argument is less developed or less cogent than the arguments of essays earning higher scores.

They support their positions by synthesizing and citing at least three sources and two core readings, but their arguments and their use of cited sources are somewhat limited, inconsistent, or uneven.

They attempt to present an argument and support their positions by synthesizing and citing at least two sources and one core reading, but may misunderstand, misrepresent, or oversimplify either their own argument or the cited sources they include; the links between the sources and the argument may be strained.

Writing Style The prose of 8 essays demonstrates an ability to control a wide range of elements of effective writing but is not flawless. 9 Essays are impressive in their control of language

Though the language may contain lapses in diction or syntax, generally the prose is clear.

7 essays have more mature prose style

The writing may contain lapses in diction or syntax, generally the prose is clear.

The prose of 4 essays may suggest immature control of writing. 3, 2, and 1 essays are especially weak in development and argument or poorly written

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Socratic Seminar Questions for Freedom

Dr. Gingrich, AP Lang and Comp fall 2013

Opening:

What is freedom?

Core/Textual:

What did freedom mean to the characters within the texts we have

read this semester?

Which characters were the freest and the least free according to

their own definitions?

Closing

Why is freedom so essential to Americans?

Is our vision of freedom different from other countries?

Has our view of freedom evolved over time?

Is there a difference between our ideals of freedom and the actual

practice of freedom?

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Readings for Synthesis/Socratic Seminar on Freedom

Source A: Foner, Eric. “Not All Freedom is Made in America.” New York Times 9 March 2003.

Web 2 December, 2012.

This is an essay published in a newspaper by Eric Foner a professor of American History at

Columbia University. The war in Iraq seems to be heading for a successful conclusion. But the United States fought for

more than military victory; it promised to bring freedom to the Iraqi people. This may prove more

complicated than the Bush administration suspects. It may force us to think in new ways about what

freedom is, and whether Americans have exclusive access to its meaning.

Freedom lies at the heart of our sense of ourselves as individuals and as a nation. The Declaration of

Independence lists liberty among mankind's inalienable rights. The Civil War, which began as a

struggle to save the Union, became a crusade to extend freedom to four million slaves. The United

States fought World War II for the Four Freedoms, the cold war to defend the free world. After a

false start in which he gave the war in Afghanistan the theological title Infinite Justice, President

Bush rechristened it Enduring Freedom. And we are now engaged in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Freedom quickly emerged as the official explanation for the war against terrorism. "Freedom itself is

under attack," President Bush announced in his speech to Congress of Sept. 21, 2001. The National

Security Strategy issued last fall begins not with a discussion of global politics or the doctrine of

preemptive war, but with an invocation of freedom, defined as political democracy, freedom of

expression, religious toleration and free enterprise. These, the document proclaims, "are right and

true for every person, in every society."

The Bush administration did not originate the conviction that American freedom is universally

applicable. Deeply embedded in our culture is the idea that the United States has a mission to

demonstrate the superiority of free institutions and to spread freedom throughout the world. Colonial

Puritans thought they were establishing a "city upon a hill," a model to be adopted by the rest of

mankind. Thomas Jefferson described the United States as an "empire of liberty," whose territorial

expansion should not be compared with Europe's imperial aggrandizement. During World War II,

Franklin D. Roosevelt promised a global New Deal based on the Four Freedoms.

Foreign observers have often been bemused, to put it politely, by Americans' refusal to consider that

other people may have thought about freedom and arrived at conclusions that might be worthy of

consideration. When Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States in the 1830's, he was struck by

Americans' conviction that "they are the only religious, enlightened, and free people," and "form a

species apart from the rest of the human race."

Desire for freedom certainly seems to be universal. Even those who wish it had been accomplished

without weakening international institutions cannot lament the fall of Saddam Hussein's bloody

dictatorship. But as the United States embarks on the project of bringing freedom to Iraq, history

suggests two notes of caution.

One is that far from being timeless and universal, our own definition of freedom has changed many

times. The story of freedom is one of debates, disagreements and struggles rather than fixed

definitions or uninterrupted progress toward a preordained goal. Nineteenth-century Americans, for

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example, defined freedom in part as economic autonomy, achieved through owning a farm or small

business. This was perfectly compatible with lack of freedom for those dependent on the male head

of household, including the women in a family and, in the South, slaves.

For much of the 20th century, many Americans thought economic security for ordinary citizens

essential to freedom. In the 1960's, the civil rights and feminist movements redefined freedom as

equality for those long held down by the larger society, and the counterculture called for freedom in

lifestyle and culture. In the last 20 years, in a kind of marriage of 60's personal liberation and free-

market economics, the dominant meanings of freedom have centered on political democracy,

unregulated free enterprise, low taxes, limited government and individual choice in matters like

dress, leisure activities and sexual orientation. Rather than a set of universal principles, this

constellation of values is the product of a particular moment and a specific historical experience.

A second point to remember is that freedom is more than a set of ideas. It must be embodied in

institutions, popular values, and the law, and these only develop over time.

"How is it," asked Dr. Samuel Johnson during the American Revolution, "that we hear the loudest

yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?" Despite all the paeans to American freedom,

equality before the law regardless of race is a recent and still fragile accomplishment. So too are

strong legal and cultural supports for civil liberties, and these have been significantly weakened since

the Sept. 11 attacks.

Current American ideas about freedom certainly resonate abroad. Eastern Europeans embraced them

after the collapse of Communist rule. Indeed, the years since 1989 have witnessed an unprecedented

internationalization of current American concepts of freedom. The "free world" triumphed over its

Communist rival, the "free market" over the idea of a planned economy, and the "free individual"

over the ethic of social citizenship.

The prevailing ideology of global free enterprise -- one element of freedom identified as timeless and

universal in the National Security Strategy -- assumes that the economic life of all countries can and

should be refashioned in the American image. This is the latest version of the nation's self-definition

as a model for the entire world.

Nonetheless, other societies have their own historically developed definitions of freedom and ways

of thinking about the social order, which may not exactly match ours. The unregulated free market,

for example, can be profoundly destabilizing in societies organized on traditional lines of kinship,

ethnicity or community.

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Source B:

Source B: United Nations. Human Rights Division. Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

1948. Dec 2, 2012. 2 Nov. 2004 <http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html>.

HISTORY OF THE DOCUMENT The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10

December 1948, was the result of the experience of the Second World War. With the end of that war,

and the creation of the United Nations, the international community vowed never again to allow

atrocities like those of that conflict happen again. World leaders decided to complement the UN

Charter with a road map to guarantee the rights of every individual everywhere. The document they

considered, and which would later become the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, was taken up

at the first session of the General Assembly in 1946. The Assembly reviewed this draft Declaration

on Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms and transmitted it to the Economic and Social Council

"for reference to the Commission on Human Rights for consideration . . . in its preparation of an

international bill of rights." The Commission, at its first session early in 1947, authorized its

members to formulate what it termed "a preliminary draft International Bill of Human Rights". Later

the work was taken over by a formal drafting committee, consisting of members of the Commission

from eight States, selected with due regard for geographical distribution.

PREAMBLE Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of

the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have

outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy

freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest

aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion

against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental

human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and

women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger

freedom,

Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United

Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental

freedoms, 5 Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the

full realization of this pledge,

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Source C Thoreau, Henry David. “Civil Disobedience.” The Thoreau Reader. The Thoreau

Society. Web. 2 Dec. 2012. http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil.html Henry David Thoreau was a noted writer and leader of the Transcendentalist literary movement.

Civil Disobedience - Part 1 of 3 Thoreau Reader: Home - Civil Disobedience Intro - Civil Disobedience - 2

I HEARTILY ACCEPT the motto, — "That government is best which governs least";(1) and I

should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to

this, which also I believe, — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are

prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but

an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty,

and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army

is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the

people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the

people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war,(2) the work of comparatively a few

individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have

consented to this measure.

[2] This American government — what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to

transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the

vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden

gun to the people themselves. But it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have

some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which

they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on

themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow. Yet this government never of

itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep

the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the

American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat

more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way. For government is an expedient by

which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said, when it is most

expedient, the governed are most let alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not made of

India rubber,(3) would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually

putting in their way; and, if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions, and

not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those

mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads.

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Source D: Source F: King, Jr. Martin Luther “I Have A Dream.” Teaching American History.

Web. 2 Dec. 2012. <http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=40>

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice and sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its Governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

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But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

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Source E: Source G: Rockwell, Norman. The Four Freedoms. ©1943 SEPS: The Curtis Publishing Co., Agent. Printed by the Government Printing Office for the Office of War Information NARA Still Picture Branch (NWDNS-208-PMP-46). Web. 2 Dec. 2012. <http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/four_freedoms/four_freedoms.html>

The following four items were commissioned by the United States Government to be painted by

Norman Rockwell to encourage American citizens to purchase war bonds. They initially appeared in

the publication The Saturday Evening Post.

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Simulation Rules

Dr. Gingrich, 10H/AP Language and Composition, Fall 2013

General Guidelines:

For your simulation you are first to read all of the articles on the issue. Each member will then serve one

of the four functions:

1. Present initial argument

2. Respond to the arguments of the other teams

3. Ask questions of the other groups

4. Present and summarize the group’s final response.

Each member should familiarize themselves carefully with the readings looking at key aspects. They

should be prepared to respond from the perspective of their figure to the situation. Roles will include

the following.

A: A general in the military

B: A college student

C: an enlisted personnel

D: the spouse of a military member who was killed in action

E: a United States Senator

F: a war protestor

Draft Board Simulation:

The United States Military spends 41% of the world’s military budget to provide a force. As the primary

military power in the world, the United States has been given the task of securing and policing world as

well as defending the U.S.’s interests around the world. From the time of the Revolution through the

Vietnam War during times of conflict the United States has used a draft or conscription in order to

maintain a strong force. Many countries still have rules in which every member of the country must

serve at least two years in the military. Over the past twenty years, however, the United States has been

involved in multiple war efforts around the globe using a volunteer army. You have been selected to

participate in a discussion to determine how the United States should maintain an active army. For

those who are unwilling to serve in the military other forms of service may be required.

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Rubric for Simulation

Team Members Names:

Simulation Topic:

Grade

Category Inadequate Adequate Effective Exemplary

Stays in Character Little Knowledge of Character

Clear Knowledge of Character

Thoughtful Representation of Character

Insightful and fully developed representation of character

Knowledge of the Readings

Little evidence of readings

Shows knowledge of readings and key ideas

Effectively supports ideas through examples from readings

Displays thorough knowledge of readings by synthesizing information from multiple source

Initial Arguments Unclear arguments

Clear and logical arguments

Thoughtful and well supported arguments

Insightful and persuasive arguments

Response to Other Teams

Little knowledge of oppositional arguments and ability to respond

Careful knowledge and ability to respond; signs of active listening

Responds to and critiques/elaborates on other teams’ positions

Sophisticated analysis, critique, and elaboration upon the arguments of other teams

Questions Unclear questions Adequate Questions

Clear and well thought out questions

Superior questions show close analysis of other group’s presentation and sophisticated knowledge of key and issues

Final Response Unclear arguments

Clear and Logical arguments

Thoughtful and well supported arguments

Insightful and persuasive arguments

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Readings for Draft Question Simulation

Source A: DAVID M. KENNEDY. “The Best Army We can Buy.” The New York Times. July 25, 2005.

THE United States now has a mercenary army. To be sure, our soldiers are hired from within the

citizenry, unlike the hated Hessians whom George III recruited to fight against the American

Revolutionaries. But like those Hessians, today's volunteers sign up for some mighty dangerous

work largely for wages and benefits - a compensation package that may not always be

commensurate with the dangers in store, as current recruiting problems testify.

Neither the idealism nor the patriotism of those who serve is in question here. The profession of

arms is a noble calling, and there is no shame in wage labor. But the fact remains that the United

States today has a military force that is extraordinarily lean and lethal, even while it is

increasingly separated from the civil society on whose behalf it fights. This is worrisome - for

reasons that go well beyond unmet recruiting targets.

One troubling aspect is obvious. By some reckonings, the Pentagon's budget is greater than the

military expenditures of all other nations combined. It buys an arsenal of precision weapons for

highly trained troops who can lay down a coercive footprint in the world larger and more

intimidating than anything history has known. Our leaders tell us that our armed forces seek only

just goals, and at the end of the day will be understood as exerting a benign influence. Yet that

perspective may not come so easily to those on the receiving end of that supposedly beneficent

violence.

But the modern military's disjunction from American society is even more disturbing. Since the

time of the ancient Greeks through the American Revolutionary War and well into the 20th

century, the obligation to bear arms and the privileges of citizenship have been intimately linked.

It was for the sake of that link between service and a full place in society that the founders were

so invested in militias and so worried about standing armies, which Samuel Adams warned were

"always dangerous to the liberties of the people."

Many African-Americans understood that link in the Civil War, and again in World Wars I and

II, when they clamored for combat roles, which they saw as stepping stones to equal rights. From

Aristotle's Athens to Machiavelli's Florence to Thomas Jefferson's Virginia and Robert Gould

Shaw's Boston and beyond, the tradition of the citizen-soldier has served the indispensable

purposes of sustaining civic engagement, protecting individual liberty - and guaranteeing

political accountability.

That tradition has now been all but abandoned. A comparison with a prior generation's war

illuminates the point. In World War II, the United States put some 16 million men and women

into uniform. What's more, it mobilized the economic, social and psychological resources of the

society down to the last factory, rail car, classroom and victory garden. World War II was a

"total war." Waging it compelled the participation of all citizens and an enormous commitment

of society's energies.

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But thanks to something that policymakers and academic experts grandly call the "revolution in

military affairs," which has wedded the newest electronic and information technologies to the

destructive purposes of the second-oldest profession, we now have an active-duty military

establishment that is, proportionate to population, about 4 percent of the size of the force that

won World War II. And today's military budget is about 4 percent of gross domestic product, as

opposed to nearly 40 percent during World War II.

The implications are deeply unsettling: history's most potent military force can now be put into

the field by a society that scarcely breaks a sweat when it does so. We can now wage war while

putting at risk very few of our sons and daughters, none of whom is obliged to serve. Modern

warfare lays no significant burdens on the larger body of citizens in whose name war is being

waged.

This is not a healthy situation. It is, among other things, a standing invitation to the kind of

military adventurism that the founders correctly feared was the greatest danger of standing

armies - a danger made manifest in their day by the career of Napoleon Bonaparte, whom

Jefferson described as having "transferred the destinies of the republic from the civil to the

military arm."

Some will find it offensive to call today's armed forces a "mercenary army," but our troops are

emphatically not the kind of citizen-soldiers that we fielded two generations ago - drawn from all

ranks of society without respect to background or privilege or education, and mobilized on such

a scale that civilian society's deep and durable consent to the resort to arms was absolutely

necessary.

Leaving questions of equity aside, it cannot be wise for a democracy to let such an important

function grow so far removed from popular participation and accountability. It makes some

supremely important things too easy - like dealing out death and destruction to others, and

seeking military solutions on the assumption they will be swifter and more cheaply bought than

what could be accomplished by the more vexatious business of diplomacy.

The life of a robust democratic society should be strenuous; it should make demands on its

citizens when they are asked to engage with issues of life and death. The "revolution in military

affairs" has made obsolete the kind of huge army that fought World War II, but a universal duty

to service - perhaps in the form of a lottery, or of compulsory national service with military duty

as one option among several - would at least ensure that the civilian and military sectors do not

become dangerously separate spheres. War is too important to be left either to the generals or the

politicians. It must be the people's business.

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Source B: Political Cartoons

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Source C: Stephen M. Kohn. Jailed for Peace The History of American Draft Violators, 1658-1985. New

York: Praeger, 1987. pp. 142-143.

The type of questions draft resisters raised stands in sharp contrast to the official debates on the

draft, which center almost entirely on military manpower options. Lacking in these debates are the

moral questions concerning war, peace, foreign policy, and the viability of nonviolence in world affairs.

No one questions whether killing is right or wrong—rather, the question is how to kill, with nuclear

bombs or with conventional troops. No one asks whether war is a legitimate tool for the

implementation of foreign policy. The questions revolve around when to go to war, for what reasons,

and against which enemy. The anti-draft movement, however, raises fundamental questions in an

uncompromising manner. It questions the morality of an assumed reality.

Warfare has fundamentally changed. The advent of nuclear war has given added power and

appeal to the nonviolent philosophy of draft resistance. The inhuman barbarism of nuclear holocaust

has forced new generations to reevaluate their willingness to support warfare in any capacity. The

courage and heroism associated with the glories of former wars have faded. Where is the young boy

who dreams of growing up to lead the battle of Hiroshima? These radical changes in the nature of

warfare have forever altered the role of the military in modern society. Parades, medals, and reminders

of battlefield exploits are becoming aspects of antiquity. The Nuclear Veteran, the Agent Orange

Veteran, and the Vietnam Veteran are slowly replacing the Veteran of Iwo Jima and D-Day.

Draft resisters have pioneered a new form of courage—the courage of peace.

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Source D:

Asbah by Brian Turner

The ghosts of American soldiers

wander the streets of Balad by night,

unsure of their way home, exhausted,

the desert wind blowing trash

down the narrow alleys as a voice

sounds from the minaret, a soulfull call

reminding them how alone they are,

how lost. And the Iraqi dead,

they watch in silence from rooftops

as date palms line the shore in silhouette,

leaning toward Mecca when the dawn wind blows.

Source E: Dulce et Decorum Est

Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

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But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.