Flags at half mast

Souls departed

Memoirs of the past

Many perhaps from large blasts

What you should know these courageous bodies once dressed in camouflage

All gone; so now we raise a flag

And every time I see it, I just can’t help but cry

Tears flow down my cheeks

While I sink teeth and draw blood from my very own lips

 

It was three weeks ago we were deployed to the battlefield

Young recruits my colleagues and I

Naive in our strides we just shouted our hoorahs!!

And on our plane to the drop zone we sang songs of high tune

Little did we know that it would be our last for many of us…?

 

After much fighting did we know; that our shadows were also our enemies

So were poisonous plants and dreaded insects

At the sound of enemy fire I crept into the grass and caught an image beside me

A fallen soldier still clad in camouflage and the light was gone from his eyes

Face was slightly pale and lips arched like he had need for words

And I could see my colleagues who bravely charged ahead

And had their entrails splashed

 

There is so much a man can take

But when he sees life taken this way he can never be the same

Days lingered and I was lost for memory

I think my brain shut me out trying to save me from my inward demise

And as our plane took us homewards and flew over burning trees and fields

I remembered all the brave men with large hearts all gone

I still remember their perfectly laced boots

The heavy stamps of men in charge

Pillars of unselfishness

All laid bare for our ungratefulness

So let us all remember on days of our fullness that men gave their lives allegedly for our goodness.