Signs of war.

April 28, Palestine.

I first noticed them in Carmi, a few days back. Signs on the streets in front of homes, Tony J. Tiddix, U.S. Marine, Ted Glenn, U.S. Army, Scott Glenn, U.S. Army at the next house (brothers?) I counted six in less than a block in Gordon, last the village before Palestine; in Robinson, the town before that on highway 33, they sported a waving U.S. flag at the top above a yellow strip, in Gordon a big yellow ribbon crossed at the top and underneath the names on a white background. The signs read from U.S. Marine to Army to National Guard to Air Force, the gamut of the armed forces of this country, and sometimes they seem to be on every corner; modest houses, well-tended cottages, all-American lower middle-class homes in the heart of America, the bread and butter of the troops in Iraq coming from small towns and villages like these in southeastern Illinois, where, I imagine, the jobs are scarce and the prospects limited.