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Patriotic Poems
War and Tragedy

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Contributor: Gary Jacobson || Poem Categories

Iron War-Horses country as flag
Iron horses fly
Delivering young men into the maw of voracious war
Into the gullet of that bestial carnivore
Iron Cobras leading the way before
With salvoes of the Jolly Green Giant
Strategic firepower to make Cong compliant
These horrific Iron birds of prey
Sent for grunts to pave the way.

Iron horses fly
Picking up angry, frightened man
From blazing infernos in Vietnam
From the heart of firefight courses
Bewailing lathered curses
Wearied by purifying fear catharses
By foul cankerous legions grievously abused
By the serpent's horror infused
Sorely wounded in body and spirit bruised

Comes again their mission...
When battle calms in remission
Flying into the jaws of hell to save combat warriors
Freedom's fiercest sons, our saviors
In throes of death, about to be overrun
In this land of burning sun
Carry them back to a home firebase built of sandbags
Carrying reverently holy body bags...
Or...
Fly them to other places where war yet rages
Carry away defiant weary sages
To another mission with their combat entourages.

Iron horses
Braving withering fire that before them disburses
Sent in during battle's bloodiest attacks
Mid rocket's red glare come the medevacs
Come to drag brave dead into body bags
Clean up fragged motley blood and rags
Of valiant boys decimated by belligerent scallywags
To record egregiously each fallen warrior's nametag
To send gallant men home under their country's flag.
By Gary Jacobson
Copyright 2005
Listed August 14, 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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War and Tragedy Poems | Poem Categories