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Courage |
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Courage found in boys hearts sent to war
To quell the voice of freedom's oppressor
Must abide strengths born deep within
Soldiers must embody morality in a shadowed season
Conquer any task before bold hearts arisen
Caught up to molder in war's hateful prison.
Guard jealously moral right in times rancorous
Amid battles powerful confusions burning contentious.
Truly conquer the evil seeds
That within and without the very soul bleeds
Forever falling to embroiled wrong cantankerous
In hatreds contagious.
When all about you have lost their capacity to love,
Forsaking greater commandments sung from above.
With every fiber in you
Do not honorable courage eschew
Hold fast to loving during war's great sin,
Balance honorable gentility in cacophonous din.
When all about you have lost their gentleness,
Vanished in obsidian jungles of darkness,
Fight for the right with vigorous might
Stay the course at any length in moral strength
Remembering love in courage bears great asset
For yourself, brothers, family, your country's debt.
Courage abides in the heart of one longing to live
Yet for inherent values ready their life to give
Valiantly holding true to honors within
In your haste at all cost to win
For apt courage is not by the macho driven
Defending honored precepts of humanity riven.
Sustain a peaceful heart when killings run rife
Maintain a truthful soul to dispel strife.
To continue after war the good life
The measure of a man, his courage unbroken
Unscathed from the evil war beast awoken
Hold fast to sweet words of love in youth spoken.
True Power submits to precepts more right
In the midst of the carnal fight.
Forgoing evil thought held in evil's sight
With verity in right, the bigger picture seeing,
Worth of a soul beyond veiled curtains knowing
Controlled fidelity in being abiding integrity.
When your country puts a rifle in your arms today
Pats you on the head and sends you to Nam to play
Boys about you in innocence ashen
Submit to evil in wars bestial burden.
Doubtful misgivings of virtuous birthright display
When others assured of right against you array.
Courage resides not in the dearth of fear
Abiding ever in the heart mastering fear
Find rights chosen way to the longer race win
When you do not with the wrong fit in.
In all you do, stand with honorable men
Steadfast foul justice amend, right principles defend.
For true honor to victoriously stand out,
Reign in righteousness against governments' clout.
Prevailing in voice loud and clear,
All mankind to a just message hear.
Courage contains compassioned empathy
Truly embracing sympathy
Truly feeling another's pain,
Heightened by the thought pain was in vain
Let them not be twisted by it,
Forever thinking of it,
Forever guided by it.
To win life's most difficult game
To bare a soul battle did maim
Endure war's horrible abuse
That greedy monster blunt and obtuse
Do not from eternal truths falter.
From war's wrongs life inalienably alter.
Build ruggedly a warrior's fortitude
On firm foundations taught in faith, exude
Withstand assailing rigors alone
Cankered battle's robust killing zone
Return home with the greater morality intact
Save humanity from war's horrors abstract. |
By
Gary Jacobson
Copyright 2000
Listed
June 26, 2010 |
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About
Author...
In 1966-67, Gary Jacobson served with B Co
2nd/7th 1st Air Cavalry in Vietnam as a combat
infantryman and is the recipient of the Purple
Heart.
Gary, who resides in Idaho writes stories he
hopes are never forgotten, perhaps compelled by
a Vietnamese legend that says, "All poets are
full of silver threads that rise inside them as
the moon grows large." So Gary says he
writes because "It is that these silver
threads are words poking at me � I must let them
out. I must! I write for my brothers who cannot
bear to talk of what they've seen and to educate
those who haven't the foggiest idea about the
effect that the horrors of war have on
boys-next-door."
Visit Gary Jacobson's site for more information
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