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Indefensible

In East Nuristan
The FOB named
For the fallen
Is a bad omen
For the rising.

Men slid down
The mountain.
With the snow,
Beads dripping
Icy blood into
The glacial waters
Of the Bashgal.

The river fed
The valley below.
Men fed bullets
Into magazines,
Into weapons,
Into wounds.

As the dead
Were the fed
Into Apaches.
To Bagram,
To Germany,
To Walter Reed.

No Chinooks;
Only single
Blade space.
No banks,
Only buddy
Transfusions.
Out and In.

Surging trade,
Cash, Blood,
Adrenaline,
Democracy.
Nothing lasts.
Not the funds,
Not the shura,
And not peace.

As they tried
To defend the
Indefensible.
From a fishbowl
Between two
Dying worlds.

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Virtue in War

Gate to Seoul

Innocence is the first casualty of war,
Truth itself flees long before.
The virtues largely all the same,
Withering away in the pyre’s flame.

Far-seeing Prudence sunders and frays,
Under the chaos of humanity’s violent phase.
Temperance becomes gluttony all the more,
Thinking victory comes through blood and gore.
Fortitude last longest but will eventually break,
As each person hits the limit of what they can take.
At start Justice is pursued and sometimes in the end found,
The in-between will justify starting the next round.
Blood and rage drive Purity away,
While Charity waits for a better day.
For a while Diligence is dutifully true,
But as the pressure builds, it erodes too.
Patience wears thin, then shatters apart,
As rage drives Kindness out of human hearts.
Humility cloaked in reverent modesty,
Withers as survival empowers “the me”.

Mankind may clash for honor or greed,
Fear itself, or religious creed.
In the rush to action much is lost,
Few politicians project the cost.
People are seldom surprised when wars begin,
Yet always shocked at what is gone in the end.

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Unaccompanied


He knows now.
There will be
No more dates.

No anniversaries,
Weddings, babies,
Looking forward.

But he missed
Uncalendared,
Mundane things.

A two-stroke
Jerking to life
Under biceps.

When sweat
Was life salt,
Not metal sick.

Finding strength
Gone, grieves
Capability.

Another cuts
Grass, carries
The burdens.

Decades ago,
He bore palls,
For his father.

Unaccompanied,
He will go by
gurney to fire.

Ashes to urn.
While another
Holds his wife.

Nothing left
To borrow,
But minutes.

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Sixth of June- They Came on!

The Sixth of June- D-Day, Overlord.
Words spoken in reverent whispers between old soldiers,
The forces of Liberty
Set forth on the old continent,
To make the world safe for democracy
For the second time in a quarter century.

As the parachutes billowed in the early hours,
And the overloaded gliders slammed into the ground,
As the bombers laid out rolling thunder,
And the fighters strafed the shore,
As the thunder from destroyers, cruisers, and battleships,
Fell as barrages against the shore,
The landing craft came in,
Wave upon wave, upon wave.

From the pillboxes and prepared positions
Lead and death flowed down in fiery rivulets.
Through the dying and the dead,
The men came on.
In sputtered starts and stops with grim, determination.
They came on.
Despite the carnage and the chaos,
They came on.
First to the water’s edge then the bloody, battered beach;
Next the seawall, the cliffs, and then breakout.
They came on.
Through village, hedgerow, and town,
They came on.
Though the fight was not finished,
There was still much to come
Through Cherbourg, St. Lo, Caen, Falaise, Argentan, Paris,
They Came on.
Until the Reich was broken
By the hammer and the sickle and the bulldog and the eagle.
Still they came on.

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Of Forges and Fates

National Cathedral

War is the crucible of humanity

Where heat and pressure burn away the dross

Transforming society.

 

The experience might forge a new society

As a rare and valuable alloy

Useful in its blending of elements;

Or,

It might just as easily,

Leave a brittle weakened state,

With poor metal in its spine,

Ready to shatter under the pressure,

Fragmenting in to shards of itself.

 

The nation that welds its various components,

Into one blade upon the forge,

Under the hammer beats of history,

Through in the fire of tribulation,

Tempered with a quench

Of Humanity and Humility,

Shall always win the day.