Two Rooms
By Lee BlessingEllen works for the State Department. This monologue is addressed to Lainie, whose husband is being held hostage by terrorists in Beirut.
ELLEN:
Early in the war between Iran and Iraq, there was an offensive. Iranian soldiers needed a way to break through Iraqui minefields. They chose an all-out frontal assault, classic World War I stuff. But with one difference. To clear the mine fields, the Iranian army - which has some significant technical limitations - used boys. The boys didn't go out and dig up the mines. They ran over them. The mines blew up, killing the boys, and the soldiers followed after, across the newly-cleared fields. These boys were fourteen, fifteen - up to twenty. Some were as young as ten. They had... volunteered. They wanted to be martyrs. And their families, too, many of them, freely gave their sons to this honor. The boys wore white headbands, ran into the fields shouting, "Shaheed," which means martyr. Some of them wrapped themselves in blankets first, so that when they were killed the explosions wouldn't blow them apart quite so much, and their bodies could be... gathered more easily, and returned home to inspire other boys to take the same path. Their parents do not grieve. They are proud, and satisfied their sons are in heaven - to them a place as tangible as this, without pain.
There are times when it becomes impossible to negotiate. When the very act of negotiating legitimizes a philosophy that's... not human anymore. Those places where such a philosophy reigns have to be isolated. Those people who try to extend such a philosophy must be stopped. At any cost.
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