#BTSpeakingOut – Child soldiers

The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

by Reinhold Neibuhr

I’d not want it denied

That down dystopian slopes we slide

To enlist the Innocents –

With sweet bribes of Your presence –

As recruits in a war

Infant arms aren’t ready for! Ordered into battle positions –

for a babe too complex and too cold;

Loaded down with those munitions

no babe should ever be taught to hold.

To manipulate as a missile

The nature of a little child

Is desperate, reckless

And, I’d have to add, wild!

Leslie P. Lett, Jr.

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God, grant me the Serenity

To accept the things I cannot change…

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.