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Subject:
The Hotdog Man by a U.S. soldier in Iraq
frostbite
11/10/2005 2:46:48 PM
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The Hotdog Man
The hotdog man...Sometimes I sit here and think about the hotdog man
and what he has done for me. I sit here thinking, ?What was his life
like??. I sit here and listen to people tell me about how hard their lives are. I watch them wallow in their sadness and then I compare their story to mine?
How much harder my day is compared to their everyday lives. How I
should be sad, slowly the sadness would sweep over me, contorting my thoughts into that of depression, eventually allowing the world to press upon me. Then I think of the hot dog man. I think of the life he must have lived to get where he is. I wonder what he must have done. I wonder how he must have struggled to end such a tormented existence. What pain he endured when he strode toward the ultimate freedom. How he must have sat there just like I am now, looking at those lives around him and wishing he could be them. But he wasn?t. He was the Hot dog man, there was nothing anyone could do about it. He would look at me and see how petty my problems are and cry. He would wish upon everything that he knew to be where I am now. Through the sacrifices he made I can be happy. Because of him I can sit here and make my life good again. I am glad to have my family. I am glad to be here in Iraq. I am glad to be alive. Thank you Hot dog man, may your torment be at an end.
The hotdog man is a corpse that we found in a canal. His legs were
chopped off at the knees and his arms at the elbows. He had all of his teeth ripped out and was lying on his back, bloating in the Iraqi sun. His body was bleached white except for his stomach and chest which were dried and hardened like leather. His body and limbs were swollen to such proportions that the only way to recognize his humanity was by the half buried face protruding from the sand bar. His mouth was a dark gaping hole of eternity. His body resembled that of a burnt hotdog, swollen by the fire and then discarded by those that no longer care. But I still care. You will not be forgotten.
Frost, US soldier
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