Ugly Side of War

By Omari Jackson

To engage in physical war-fare is a crime against mankind! And yet in all history, war has been glorified, and many thousands have sacrificed their precious lives to the god of war. And in fact with a little research into history, it is safe to say that there will always be war as man searches for a way to be superior and dominate the rest of his own.

Before the recent Liberian so-called civil-war, there had been a few others.

There was the one between Iraq and Iran, which took ten years to finish and there was the ever present war between the Israelis and the Palestinians. And therefore when the Liberian war broke out and everything seemed set to change, there was no way that we could have known the pain that was set come. There was every indication that death and destruction would be its by-products. Though we could not be too sure about them there was a sense of optimism that it would be a nine-day wonder.

My name is Sam Lonestar, and I am a middle-age fellow of many talents, trust me. During the Liberian war, I came in contact with several adventures and I am deciding to tell one of them. It could be described as the “story that touched the heart” or whatever you would choose to consider it, it is fine with me.

The first of my encounters began when the West African Peacekeepers, known as Ecomog arrived in Monrovia to our rescue. At the time all jobs had ceased and men in general were pure liabilities.

Women in Monrovia had the advantage, since they could venture into several areas, including the Freeport of Monrovia, to secure some food from the soldiers who had come to help stop the war. Though like many people, I was glad that the soldiers came, what I did not know was that their coming would mean many of us losing our dear ones to them, if you know what I mean.

Let me explain.

At the time I was going out with a beautiful Kru lady of moderate height and weight. I was one of the few who liked their women slim, and when Mamie would walk down the road, her body contours would be visible behind her, like a snake slithering down the grass. Her body was gracious and showed off her beauty’s landscape, and do you see why I was not prepared to let anyone snatch her away from me? And by every account, Mamie was a woman of substance.

Mamie was inclined to tall and she very often wore a rose-colored skirt. Her small black eyes matched her long attachment hair. Her voice was somber, and it resembled the evening echoes of a stream, or a river or a creek, like the one near Stockton Creek, Caldwell, outside Monrovia.

With all the danger around, she did not notice the difference as to what was happening in the country. To her, the mere attention paid her by certain Ecomog soldiers was enough, and since she was able to squeeze money from them to adorn herself, she felt life was too sweet with the soldiers to waste her time with a broker and a loser like me who was only proclaiming my love to her without concrete proof of my manhood.

She would not accept the reality that the war had rendered me, and all Liberian non-fighting-men incapable to even take care of ourselves.

So as events continued to worsen, and I was unable to support her like before, she continued to teach me the other side of love. And until today, I have accepted the fact, whether anyone agrees with me or not, that love is pain.

I told you my name is Sam Lonestar, right? Maybe you’re intrigued about my name and how I got it. My surname is Lonestar, and I am not in the position to explain whether I earned it because of my father’s love for the national soccer team, Lone Star. I did not know that my surname had that popularity till I came of age, since that time many people would call me by my initials, SL. There were other friends that I knew, but who were also called by their initials. There was this fellow I knew called JR, and still another D. Square.

It might have been that my birth date coincided with events surrounding Lone Star, and therefore let me leave you with any idea about my name and hurry on to tell you the first of my stories.

My beautiful Mamie finally decided that she would join the Ecomog and give me the boot. On the first thought, because I loved her so much, I decided to fight back.

“I cannot leave you, Mamie,” I protested, “leaving you is like killing my soul.”

“Then what are going to do about it?” The beautiful woman said to me. Her forceful points of disengagement surprised me, and I felt like throwing up. I could not accept the truth that I was losing her.

“Can we talk about this?” I could hear my voice, pleading for her assistance. The beautiful woman I had known for many years’ face changed suddenly. It was apparent that she was waiting for someone since the hour was pushing to six in the night. But suppose the Ecomog boyfriend came and decided to flog me? I was trying to make sense of any eventuality just in case it happened.

The Nigerian soldiers were noted for flogging boy friends of the girlfriends that had just met, and there were stories I knew about where some Liberian fellows were shot, “accidentally,” by the soldiers, and killed; and so I was being smart to consider that option, just in case I had to put up a fight.

I was not strong enough to physically engage any man for a woman who had decided to abandon my love. But I was prepared to put a show of defiance since I felt that it was a coward who would not put up a fight for the one he was in love with.

One reason I could not let Mamie go without a fight was that our little boy-child had died in the course of the war, and I had always loved her.

“You know I love you, Mamie,” I continued my defense for help, “leaving me now can even kill me.”

“Then you must go ahead and die,” she retorted, and it was like a dagger in my heart. “If a woman does not want you, what will you do?”

She wanted me to answer that question but I could not muster the courage to even attempt it.

“Does love not have any remembrance at all?” I had been her bread winner before the war, and with the war everything had changed and I was losing her. And with that question I was desperately making an attempt at what was apparently lost and out of my hands.

Sadly my feeble defense did not impress her any bit. But in truth I had always loved her, and now the end was catching up fast with me.

Then I saw it coming!

The huge Ecomog Truck, known as Bloody Face, rumbled towards us, and I knew that the game was up for me. Mamie walked away from me towards the truck, and from where I stood I could see the outline of her smile that had been once mine, only.

“Oga make Una wait,” I heard my Mamie say that in Nigerian Pidgin English. My heart continued to boil within me, and I wanted to do something. I then began to praise the bravery of the rebels in the bush, who, if I were one, I could have taught this Nigerian soldier some lesson. The Oga was not only taking the woman away from me, she was abandoning the beautiful Liberian English for Nigeria’s Pidgin English. “I de kom Oga,” Mamie said it loud and clear, and there was no way I could have missed it.

My fear then was that the Nigerians and their counterparts were introducing a new way of “speaking” into the Liberian society. Did I feel gravely bad about it? You bet I did. But then I realized that there was nothing so much that I could do to change the developing condition. I felt uncomfortable, and cold bumps descended upon me.

Immediately, beads of perspiration formed on my forehead and my legs began to shake. I wanted to vomit when I imagined that the Nigerian soldier was to have my once beautiful sweetheart all to himself.

When I came to myself, the Truck had turned around and was heading towards from whence it had come. The weather in New Kru Town felt warm, though the cold breeze swirled around me. My eye-lid jerked by itself, and my trousers wanted to fall down my knees, but I grabbed it with my right hand. See, my belt had given up any hope of holding ground, and I was glad that there was no one around to witness my humiliation.

I knew then that I was a loser.

My dear reader, love is pain, indeed!

“Married women, married me, don’t leave one another oo, that’s war ooo”

That lyrical phrase sunk into my mind, as I sauntered away from my humiliation. The song was made by the Small Town International Group of Logan Town. The three-teenage-group was determined to fight back, and to recover the injustice as well as moral corruption that were prevalent all around in the Liberian society. My steps were heavy, and my legs, I thought, did not want to carry me away.

Near the Plaza Cinema, I was comforted with the hit song, I think a Ghanaian rendition, “Woman no good no, woman no good oo, my friend ee woman no good, oo!” I had always held the female sex with respect, nonetheless with my experience I was not prepared to accept the blanket statement that women are not good.

It was possible, I thought, that the Small Town International’s other lyric, “In any situation women have their talents” was a good way to understand my experience; and since we were apparently facing the end of our days in war-time, there was nothing wrong for the females among us to find a way to survive.

‘Women have their talents,” indeed!

Though there were some justification for Mamie’s action, I felt she could have done it another way, like helping me to turn some petty cash around, or something.

In the end I blamed the fragile Liberian society, and its failure to cherish what we needed most at such a crucial time of our existence. As painful as it was, in the end, I felt for her, when news reached me that she had been diagnosed with the deadly Aids virus, and everyone was shying away from her. You would imagine that I was elated to hear about her misfortune, right? I was not.

Just before I left Monrovia, one year later, I once saw her sitting at the corner of Broad and Johnson Street, tears in her face, and passers by walking by her, begging for alms. She did not notice me because when I heard her story, I disguised myself with a hat and a cloth around my neck. I did not want her to see me, since her story was all over in New Kru Town in particular, and throughout Monrovia.

“That’s the girl,” I heard two young women discussing her to each other. I stood behind them, and pretended I was a total stranger, and listened. And to be fair, there were tears in my eyes. I could not believe that the woman I had once cherished and loved, now by her action, as a result of the love for what money could buy, was shunned and hated. I wanted to show myself to her, and then grab her and embrace her for the old times’ sake. But then I checked myself since there were many people passing by.

The two young women standing further from me continued to discuss her story.

“That’s the New Kru Town girl who is now having aids?”

“Yes,” the other said, “who to blame; the war, herself or the soldiers who gave it to her?”

I did not have any answer for that one as I placed a Liberian five-dollar note into a plate sitting by her.

“Thank you,” her familiar voice echoed in my ears, and I hurriedly turned my face away from her to hide my tears. Her once plump body had degenerated, and her eyes sockets stared at me with emptiness. Her hair had fallen off, like she had gone through a cancer treatment.

Two years later when I called Liberia to find out about her, the chilling news was, “Mamie died, three months after I left Liberia.”

Her grave, like many in the war, was hurriedly dug and the remains, without a coffin, wrapped and committed to the ground. I was told that a sympathetic fellow, rumors said he might have been one of her lovers, placed a memorial on the ground where her body was concealed to wait for the Lord’s return, which read: “Here lies the result of an adventurous life: may the Lord have mercy on her soul.”

Though I still mourn her, it is because I am a human.

Rest in Peace, Mamie.