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Market Day Yesterday
Memorial Day Today

Market Day yesterday
Memorial Day today
Missile attack
Low flying jet
Bridge span down
and another victory
for freedom
Hamburgers and beer
Flags unfurled
God forgive America
And a headless priest
Innocent women
and children
Wounded
Or dead in a church
In some place
that Americans
don't know
Can't place on a map
And don't care
a fuck about anyway
But it's freedom
time now
So let's get drunk
And salute the
flag
Another good deed
for freedom's
high tech way!

Copyright ©
Memorial Day 1999
Michael David Coffey


Background News Item:

VARVARIN, Serbia, May 30 (Reuters) - It was market day and the bridge in the central Serbian town of Varvarin was crowded, locals said. By the time reporters got there blood stains, human remains, a burned bike, hat and shoe were all that was left.

Officials said nine people died and at least 17 were wounded when NATO targeted the bridge in half in the southern Serbian town of Varvarin twice on Sunday afternoon. It was cut in half by the explosions and the pieces lay semi-submerged by the Morava River.

``Two missiles hit first, people rushed to help those trapped. Four minutes later, another two hit,'' said Slavoljub Blagojevic, manager of a nearby sports centre.

``Today is a religious holiday and market day. Thousands of people were on and around the bridge,'' he said.

Eight bodies, including that of a priest with his head blasted away, were lying in a local morgue attached to a nearby Orthodox church. The ninth victim, a girl, died on the way to hospital in the nearby town of Krusevac.

The charred bike, with human remains on the wheels, lay next to the bridge with the hat and shoe of the man who had been about to ride across.

``Monsters! What else can be said?'' a local resident shouted.

Janko Milenkovic, investigating judge from Krusevac, said at least three missiles hit the bridge around 150 km (90 miles) south of Belgrade. Residents said there was an air raid warning at the time and they could hear planes buzzing overhead.

``So far we have identified nine bodies. There are many wounded, at least 17,'' the judge told reporters in front of the morgue.

The latest civilian devastation during NATO's two-month-old bombing campaign against Yugoslavia followed an increase in daylight raids on Sunday designed to force Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who was beginning to show signs of compromise, to comply fully with the West's demands on Kosovo.

NATO says it is aiming only at military targets that could be used by the security forces in their devastating crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatism in the southern Serbian province. Bridges are included in the list.

``What can I say about NATO? This was an exclusively civilian bridge. No soldier ever crossed it for military purposes,'' said local cameraman Radomir Stojanovic.

One missile hit a nearby cemetery, damaging some gravestones. A nearby hotel, housing Serb refugees from Croatia, had all the windows broken. Inside the walls were damaged and a ceiling had fallen into a room on the top floor. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties.

Stojanovic was fishing when the attack happened and said two children had been nearby. He didn't know what happened to them.

``What would they say if these were their children?'' said another man, fighting back tears.

15:57 05-30-99


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Email: Mdcoffey@aol.com