"April is the cruellest month..."

[kentuck]

As the esteemed Senator Byrd said the other day, in quoting T.S. Elliot...

<snip>
The number wounded since April 1 is approaching 900, far beyond the 200-300 wounded in most other months of the conflict. In March 291 were wounded in action. The highest monthly total before April was 413 in October 2003, according to the Pentagon's Directorate for Information Operations and Reports.

<snip>
By far most of the battle wounds have happened since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations on May 1. Since that date there have been more than 2,700 wounded in action, of which 109 were females and more than half were lower-ranking enlisted soldiers.

According to a Pentagon breakdown by age group, 579 troops aged 21 and below were wounded between May 1 and April 8, the latest date for which such figures are publicly available. A total of 669 troops were aged 22-24; 703 were aged 25-30; 353 were aged 31-35, and 327 were over 35. The Pentagon said ages were not yet available for 104 of the wounded.

...more

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And 109 of those were females - our mothers and sisters...Now we know why picutes of those wounds could never be made public...As they lay in hospitals with limbs missing - in pain - the American media continues to promote Bush's Folly....

[freetobegay]

1. Does T.S. stand for

Terribly sexy?

[RoyGBiv]

2. It used to....

...but now it stands for terribly sad.

[markses]

3. I gues it would be a paraphrase if he said it that way

Eliot's goes:

I. The Burial of the Dead

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
(etc.)

A few other choice lines from the poem Byrd might use in the future:

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I think we are in rats' alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

PHLEBAS the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[kentuck]

4. Yes, I should have said it was paraphrased......

my error...I hope it is not of too major proportion but I do apologize.