the lebanese army

Last night they bombed Amchit.

For those of you who wonder where is Amchit; it is a small town north of Beirut, past Jounieh and right by Byblos, the historical city, right by the sea.

i was staying this summer in a small place in Amchit, just to study.
Before that is the war started. ..
I never thought I would use this sentence again... "before the war started".

We heard the planes on their way there; my house is on the way.
We knew somewhere close would be hit.
My friends said: go to the mountain and stay with your parents. We thought it would just be casual.

We stayed.
We woke up this morning and they had targetted Amchit. again the military bases in Amchit.
Our army is the only institution within this state that i feel empathy towards.

They were never the ones to attack; always the ones to defend.

In 1990, when the Syrians made their re-entrance into Lebanon, they killed officers by douzains; shot in their heads.

The red cross, my cousin being one of them at the time, had to pick the bodies in silence; no words were allowed to be said.

I remember an officer that used to stand behind Michel Aoun in the presidential palace, before the Syrians went in. As the crowd was filled with passion and Aoun made his thousand promises of freedom and independance (before he fled that is), i, being 12 at the time, used to gaze into that officer's eyes.

He had black hair, a black moustach (which i only agreed to on him) and big blue eyes, that to me, were the only two things that carried a promise of freedom and independance.
He stood there, without moving his silent and still eyes, faithful to his mission, ready to give his life to defend "the" leader.

i spent all days after the syrian re-invasion wondering what became of him.
i used to have dreams about him.
my broken 12 years heart was broken over and over again... for i did not know whether his still eyes were still somewhere else, a different kind of still...

i never knew what happened to him since.
some say he survived, some say he died.
I hope somewhere someone still sees his still blue eyes.

He is the messenger of our army, an army unable to even defend itself.
Around 30 soldiers from our army have died so far in this fake war that is not even theirs.
They have the heart and sterngth and courage, but they don't have a single plane, not even a proper fleet.

The israelis have been bombing army targets; soldiers killed in their beds at night.
This is not a war, this is a tragic comedy.
For one army fights with cluster bombs and the other with roses layed on coffins.