Joe Frank's Ode to War

I am impressed by a recording of a Joe Frank monologue that is posted on NPR.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend during the holiday yesterday in our quiet town. After buckling his baby boy into his car seat, he paused to tell me he had been down to the memorial at the beach wondering at the number of young men who continue to join the war.

Mr. Frank's ode in celebration of war is a provocative mediation on the topic.

Here are two portions from it:

Here's to war. I raise my glass to you and gaze into the roiling liquid of death's own intoxication. O, war, you have made the low elevated. You have created heroes, and history will be written by your winner. Peace is pallid next to you. Peace can skulk and shrink, a weakling, a coward's paradise...
Peace walks through the marketplace offering second-hand bargains, peace, the shaver of points, the cut-rate merchant. Peace, you miserable converter of men into swine, you destroyer of valor, quicksand in which nations founder, the bleeding wound in the side of the great avenging angel. Peace, the apologist, the compromiser, the appeaser, the rust upon the edge of courage's great sword...
There are no gigantic fireworks displays, no champagne corks popped to peace, no last cigarette smoked in its honor. There is no night before peace, no declaration of peace. The very absurdity of a nation declaring peace on another shocks the imagination. And who among us can say that he has heard of the spoils of peace? Is there such a thing as a peace hero? Who among us have gathered with his old cronies late at night, hoisted a glass and told peace stories? What valiant young man has been welcomed back from peace? What young boy has gazed longingly at his father, saying that he would willingly go to peace to save his country?

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Joe Frank

-R