The image is of a young American pilot – highly trained, dedicated and more lethal than any soldier that predates him. He sits high in his multi role fighter plane – he can dog fight with the best of the best and precision bomb designer missiles through an enemy’s bedroom window. He sleeps well at night for he knows that he is a modern centurion paving the future of civility and good.
He grew up in a good neighbourhood with loving parents, he was a champion sports star but also very gifted in the sciences. His life was uncomplicated, he knew the difference between right and wrong from the earliest age, and now he spends his life working to protect ‘his’ moral high ground, won through the hard work of his ancestors.
The image is of a young Arab, brave but suppressed fighting hard for the moral righteousness of his people. He to sits high, but not in a modern jet, but in mountain region overlooking a life missed out on by modernity. His people suffer from afflictions those in the West no longer know exists, he wasn’t able to attend much school, though the local Mosque helped make him literate. He prays for the time when he will join other martyrs in paradise, but for now there is still work to do.
He grew up in a small town; shells aimed at a nearby Mosque often rocked the foundations of his house and life. That Mosque was the only place that ever provided a sense of humanity, the shells that landed came from American factories. He knew the purpose of his life very early, he sleeps soundly and contently for he knows that paradise is his, indeed his only hope is to die with the word of God on his lips.
