Category Archives: Other Voices

Desires of the Human Heart

In a Baghdad neighborhood where residents have been subject to methodical slaughter, the 1-4 Cavalry from Fort Riley, Kansas has found an abandoned Christian college to be an island in the storm.

Michael captures the desolation and the toll of human life from the continuing civil war in words and photos that evoke the End of Days.

"Most of the families in the vicinity have fled. People are murdered nearby every day, and during just one of the days I was with 1-4 Cavalry, they reported finding three murder victims. The Iraqi police and our soldiers told me that murders are down since the security plan began, yet our people still found fourteen human bodies over the period of one week. The enemy kills entire families including small children."

"The people who could leave have mostly gone. Many of the wealthy and the educated have abandoned Iraq. The lights rarely come on here."

And yet Michael writes,

"And on these empty streets, a practiced eye regards the slivers of hope that are strewn among all the chards of broken glass."

Whatever the result from this war, we are incredibly indebted to Michael Yon and the others who bring us the ground-level view of soldiers dealing with a disintegrating civilization.

Civilizations have fallen into barbarism in past ages and we have evidently not learned enough to prevent this from happening again.

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