Reflections on a War President’s Peace Prize
Susan Collier Lamont

In March, President Obama increased troop levels in Afghanistan by 30,000. The consequences were deadly for U.S. soldiers, Afghanis, and Pakistanis alike. Now he is sending 30,000 more, hoping that the same action will achieve different results.

This week, Obama will accept the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to him based upon his words and despite his actions. For me, there is a sense of déjà vu. I remember a time when the ultimate hawk, Henry Kissinger, accepted the same prize, given to him based upon hopes for the words spoken across a negotiating table, which contrasted so starkly with the reality of jungle battlefields.

My accompanying prose poem, Hero, was inspired in part by a photograph, on the cover of the Press Democrat a few years ago, of a mother and father at the funeral for their son, a soldier who had been killed in Iraq. It is also a reflection on a conversation I had with a reporter with that same newspaper, who said the newspaper requires that all military personnel be called heroes. If the reporter were to leave out the word “hero,” the editor would put it in.

It’s a web of truth and lies, illusions and hopes, and the faith we place in words. It can be difficult to untangle the threads. This week, a war president will receive a peace prize. And so it goes.


Hero

His father and mother stare out from the newspaper. She wears a pin bearing her son’s face. He holds a photo of his only child in uniform. This is front page news. They look as dead as the young man they are burying. The flag has been folded up tight and placed on her lap, a repository for the dead weight of her hands that will never feel his cheek again.

Hero, they write.

His parents rise as the earth receives his body. Two damp semi-circles appear beneath his mother’s arms, belying the February morning. A drop of sweat slips past his father’s ear, catching the sun on a face turned to stone. His mother reaches for the sunglasses in her purse.

Hero, they proclaim.

At home he haunts the rooms. Searches for his dreams under the pillow where he stored them. Looks for his first love in his grandfather’s cigar box under the pile of sweaters in the closet. Rummages for his future in the tackle box where he hid it for safekeeping when he left.

Hero, they sigh.

He follows his parents as they move through their days or looks on as they sit in silence behind the drawn curtains. Hovers around his mother as she stands in the kitchen staring out the window as the soup simmers. Cries out, “Please, let me tell you what I saw!” Sits on the stool in the garage as his father tinkers with the engine of the motorcycle he’ll never ride. Implores, “Please, let me tell you what I did!”

Hero, they whisper.

His mother spends her afternoons in the dark movie theater, sobbing for star-crossed lovers.