My son reccin·d your notice today . We said it wouldn't be hut it was, a shock after all. It had to come-that time when your spindles and wheels would whir and click out his name . I hope I go beforc school, he'd say to me, Yeah, get the G.I. hill, I'd answer back. Now, that fiction has faded in the pain somehow. You've spewed out his number and he must go: However there are somP things I must say, You, machine, teach people to killto take away that which he holds so dear. Will you wipe away in a month what he's learned in a life? What can you conjurP up, in your cold metal mind, to r eplace the warmth of a father and son? You'll teach him to slay, I taught him to lovc. I felt him grow from a fragile child to a fledgling man . It just scems wrong somehow to send thi s blood or my lilood lo greas<· a maC'hine. I heard him cry in the night ,vhen the rever came and listened to his tales or gr<'mlins and ghosts. And shared with him his moments of joySuffered with him his moments of hurt. Soaring kit<·s and growing pups banged-up krn·es and pulling tecth. I can rt>member amazement at se<·ing hat<~ for an "old gurrl." His hands seek to explor<' and createto grasp life and prt>ss flesh; not pull triggers or drop homhs. Can you, machine, answer his questions? He can ask them for years. Will you assure him when he r<·els insernre? Or will you take away his lire and slaughtn his hopes? How long, machine, will you tak<· without giving? How long will you lie cradlt-d in the smt;lly crotch of bureaucracy swilling the SW<'<'t juice of youth? How long will you allow the guts of AmeriC'a to be strewn on the slopes or a far away hill? Can you procreat<' your own boys, tear ribs from your sidt> and mold th<·m , nurture them and suffer them to become menonly to ship them off to be slain; to spill their blood for dollars? No, you cannot! And fortunate too- for surely you would die a grisly death , with legions of bastards plucking at your brain. Hy JOl/N O'NEii, - •) - :). )