The Poems And Confessions Of A Mad Man

A Soldiers Story

By: Andrew J. Green

We jumped out of our vehicles, with our weapons that day,
Not knowing we'd fall into the hands, of the man with the A.K.
He shot me in the arm, and then tried for my head,
But little did he know, he was already dead.
Because from the sky fell, the misguided bombs,
That incinerated everything, within God's palms.
Oh the enemy was dead, but so was half my team.
This is the war, the reporters left unseen.
One time we heard explosions, within the camp at night,
We thought it was the beginning, of a fire fight.
But it was just our soldier, who had lost his mind,
It may have been for his religion, that he committed this crime.
We are given rules of engagement, to be followed by every man,
The enemy fights by no rules, as we invade his land.
We'd better do everything right, or face court-martial in the end,
As we're judged by every viewer, watching C.N.N.
Today a friend of mine died, from a rocket attack,
Blew his body apart, when he was hit in the back.
His family will weep, when they receive the bad news,
He will be buried at Arlington, closed casket, dress blues.
Car bombs and snipers, kill a soldier a day,
The people scream in our faces, for us to go away.
The temperature hits, one hundred forty in the sun,
We feel we've got it made, when it's only one hundred and one.
I have to go now, for the burning in my chest,
The bullet that entered, has made such a mess.
I wonder if I'll die, if I might, if I could,
I hear the medic say, this kid doesn't look good.
I feel my soul, begin to drift away,
This soldier is gone, I hear the surgeon say.
When I wrote to Mom and Dad, I said I'd be home by June,
They probably never thought, it would be this way, or this soon.

Catholic School

By: Andrew J. Green

On September 6, 1970 my parents sent me for my first day of kindergarten. I'll never forget the smell of crayon boxes and the look on the faces of the other kids in my class. I remember a lot of the little kids crying as though their mothers were abandoning them forever. One kid named Mike even pissed all over himself after being there for only an hour or so. I figured this kid was going to wash out of the program for sure. Needless to say, after a week of pissing himself, his mother pulled him out of that school and put him into another. I can't blame the kid though, because that kindergarten was one of the toughest classes in the joint.

I remember the teacher’s name. Ms. Tellarico. Just the mention of her name still sends a chill up my spine. She reminds me of my Army drill sergeant. What she would prepare us for, is still talked about at everyone of our  family gatherings to this day. I remember one time when a class mate named Patricia, was coloring outside of the lines in the coloring book. Ms. Tellarico wouldn't tolerate any deliberate rebellion, so she pulled Patricia’s out of her chair by her hair and yanked her over to the corner of the room. I can still hear what Patricia told the teacher. With a look of horror in her eyes, she said, "I'm going to tell my mommy that you hurt me!" But Ms. Tellarico said sternly, "You’re never going to tell anyone what happens in here." Patricia washed out of the program within 2 weeks of starting.

These kids were dropping like flies, but I had 4 of my siblings, along with my mother, who had made it through this Basic Training part of this hell hole of a school, and I knew I had no choice. Everyday I wished my big brother had quit when he was in kindergarten so my parents would have sent us to public school, but that didn't happen. I knew I had no choice but to keep going back to the belly of the beast where Ms. Tellarico ruled with an iron fist.

Our kindergarten room was just across the hall from the office where the Mother Superior sat on her thrown. The word in the bathroom was, that the only way a nun could become the Mother Superior, is by killing a student. It's kind of like being a "Made Man" in the mob. This Mother Superior must have earned that position by finally wasting one of the students in the school. I'm sure her other nuns probably buried the body of the child back by the fence where we had to clap the erasers.

Once when I went down to clap the erasers, I saw a man sleeping by the fence. I thought he was one of the bigger students that the Mother Superior had killed and didn't bury yet, but he moved and looked at me. He spoke to me and said he was a student in this school a long time ago. I concluded that this must be either what a graduate will become if you survive this place, or that he had washed out of the program many years earlier, and is now a bum because of it. Either way, I didn't want to be seen associating with him so I ran with the half cleaned erasers back to the room.

I remember us kids trying to get on Ms. Tellaricos good side so that when she lost her temper on us, her wrath wouldn't be the full blast. She had us all clean the chalk boards and sweep up the class room. We basically were doing what the janitor was paid to do. It seemed like a small sweat shop but without the pay. I remember hearing the wale’s and crying coming from the Mother Superiors office and how all of the other kindergarteners would try to act like they didn't hear the poor soul that was in there, getting whipped for something that didn't deserve a beating. That Principals Office was truly the quintessential Theater Of Pain. I may not have realized it at the time, but I would be one of those poor souls that would visit the Mother Superiors Principal Office in the future.

I can remember one time being told that the 2nd grade teacher, Sister Buzzy, was worse than our kindergarten teacher. It was believed that Sister Buzzy, was bucking for the Mother Superiors slot, so she wouldn't ever send the naughty students to the office, she would just beat them in front of all of the other students. She instilled pain and fear like no other. I hoped that the rumors would prove to be lies, but would find out the hard way, that the legends and myths were a reality like no other.

In May of the 1971, there was only