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Contributor: Gary Jacobson || Poem Categories

The Next Generation country as flag
We old veterans are no longer young men,
Though passion for freedoms still burn strong,
Looking out on the younger generation
To whom the flame of liberty does now belong.

Will they honor our legacy;
Will they think our fight a travesty?
Will they answer the call
Be willing in innocence to give their all?

Will they follow in a warrior's footstep,
Fight the latest in a series of wars-to-end-all-wars
That through history creep?
Repeat our misstep
Battles fought and won through tragedy,
Battlefields shining bright with our blood gory
A glorious page in our nation's story?

Will they schlep a gun or tote a mortar,
Worship at the God's of war altar?
Or will they from our folly learn the sense of peace,
God's true way,
That hatred's disputations might forever cease.
By Gary Jacobson
Copyright 1999
Listed November 3, 2010

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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