by Anna-Elise Price
If you go to kill the infidel, the evildoing towel-headed agents of terror, will you finally be all you can be, an army of one, standing alone the hero of that video game you play for hours; will your mother weep tears of pride at the transformed slacker no longer cluttering her couch; will all those yellow magnets be supporting you; will your home town hang your name on a lamp-post with a yellow ribbon, and will that ribbon turn black
Or worse
Will you return without an arm, missing half your brain
But no, you are young and youth is better armor than what the army may not give you
And when they finally let you go, with new dead eyes and secrets you will not tell, will you be ready for the peace of the second-shift job your father can get you because he knows a guy, the job you are willing to join the army to avoid?
Having proved her liberal credentials by serving three years as a public defender for juveniles, and then a further three at legal aid doing education law, Anna-Elise Price is now studying writing at Eastern Illinois University.
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