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Love and Pride

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Contributor: Lou J. Klaiber || Poem Categories

Just A Case of Poetic License

country as flag
To those who say we fought
for nothing!
I say it's true... we fought
for YOU!

To those young friends
not yet born... Hello!
We fought for you.

But mostly for each other
we fought;
and for ourselves!
Caught, upon the hot anvil!
Forged into Brothers
by War's ritual horror!

And for the first time;
I knew you
America!
My home!
Born to war
by warriors frozen in time
at Valley Forge.

Knew the suffering;
the pain of loss;
the gain
of endearing Love...
knew your heart... America!

It was your presence I felt.
as dirty,
... as aching and tired as I,
standing beside the silent dead...
beneath a hot sky...
A small wind tugging at their hair,
drying the last of sweat ... the end of tears.

I thought of you as I cradled
a wounded soldier's head...
a friend who didn't outlive
the cigarette I lit for him.

He who never returned from war
to feel
the incredible weight of emptiness.

nor the pleasure of aging and reading
E lines of electric cadence...
marching as to a dream,
left for us all.
The yet Free!
Still alive!
Souls
of eternal Liberty!
By Lou J. Klaiber
Copyright 2000
Listed September 15, 2009
 
Lou served in Vietnam in 3 Corps Vietnam during 1965 - 1966 as a Sergeant E-5.

It is illegal to use this poem without the author's permission.
~~ Send your comments and/or use permission request to
Lou. ~~
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Love and Pride Poems | Poem Categories