In Flight

World Airways Flight 8050 - somewhere over the atlantic

Numb.  I spoke to the family for the last
time from the USO phone in Baltimore.  Herd
aboard the plane - an MD-11.  Ironic, isn't it?
That I might have built the very aircraft that
is to carry me to war when I worked at McDonnell-Douglas
thirteen years ago?

Now the seats are filling with tan uniforms, mostly men,
but more women than I would have thought.  Average kids
from the neighborhood, or the small town... None look like
they would have grown up in Grosse Pointe. They are full
of false impressions, prejudices, and a sense of bravado,
even the women,  Some laugh, and I think that they're not
leaving behind  what I am.  These are the children America
sends to war.