A Tribute to Our Fallen Hero, Late General Joseph Lagu Yanga (1931-2026)
I am dead; short days ago I lived.
I breathed the dawn, I watched the sunset blaze,
I carried laughter in my chest,
and now I lie still,
covered by the heavy mercy of earth.
Take up our quarrels, no more; take up our prayer.
From failing hands, we throw the torch:
hold it high, not for fire,
but for a road back home.
If ye break faith with us who die,
we shall not sleep,
though our bodies turn to dust.
For war is not only thunder.
It is the quiet cracking of mothers’ hearts,
the missing footprints of young boys running,
the silence after a whistle never returns.
It is glory that costs too much,
and noble ends purchased with broken bodies.
Yet you went, Joseph Lagu Yanga
with courage in your voice, with duty in your blood.
You walked where maps end,
where fear learns your name,
where the strong shoulders of men move the world forward
even while the world burns behind them.
You taught us what it means to stand,
to gather the torn pieces of survival,
food, courage, breath, and hope,
carried barefoot through the harsh distance,
so others could live to fight another morning
or simply live.
But what a dread it is, to be forced to harm.
To fear not death,
but the moment you must become the weapon.
Even the heartiest hero
cannot make that part clean.
So let the living speak with one mouth:
Men are brothers, through and through,
say it until borders soften,
until hatred starves,
until hunger is answered,
until grief becomes history and not a new beginning.
I call all who hear,
work together for peace.
Stop the bloodshed that profits the powerful
and empties the poor.
General, we thank you.
Thank you for your life,
thank you for your steadiness,
thank you for the state funeral that cannot repay
what was taken from us.
Now is then. Then is now.
Death is life, and Life is death.
And the truest honour we can offer you
is to refuse the same road of mourning.
With proud thanksgiving we remember you,
across the country and into the sky.
Your name moves like a star in our darkness.
Until the end, until the end,
we will not forget you.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
and then