Nancy m'lass...
Don't mean no sass
But methinketh ye have us old salts pegged
Or did ye hear that cough us old timers gagged
More like wearing worn combat boots
Than worn out suits
Frayed slightly around the edges
Yet fickle life still encourages
In unabashed wonderment that we are still here
To twist the fancies of you m'dear
Giving heck to those clueless ones
To get a grip or they're the ones
That'll soon be totin' guns...
O yes, I'm afraid of what they'll do
With that bright future we left them too
For if they learn not of what we did
If from the stories of history hid
Their future will be on a slippery skid
And they won't be counting that proverbial flower
As much as pushing them up thru mud sweet and sour
That'll bring more condemnation to cravens that cower
Hour by blessed hour
For they, like we did, do believe they're indispensable
That's to me incredible
But when push comes to shove will find they're expendable
Their whole world upendable
Just like all the rest
Pawns of powers that sent them scampering to another test
Fighting yet another war to end all wars
Till they've sacrificed all the boys next door
So who's to blame?
They're just playing their little game
Over and over again and again
So ends this saddened refrain...
Do I dare sign my name to this one... lol!
What the hell.

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

It is illegal to use this poem without the author's permission.
~~ Send your comments and/or use permission request to Gary Jacobson. ~~