ronald stroman (03/14/56 / philadelphia, pa)

every time,
i send freshly recruited
war poems to war zones;
in Iraq or Afghanistan,

they have a tendency
to come back home damaged:
shipped home w/parts of sentences
& PHRASES MISSING,
where medals on SERGEANTS
would be.

war poems shot at by CORPORALS,
who read these words and found true;
what PRIVATES… if they survived,
found the “purple hearted” truth in too.
that the best part of ARMY life,

in the military, besides the last day in it
for some officers-
was surviving long enough,
to grow into a well paid
Pentagon General/Politician;
groomed for CNN, to explain war to us,

while the “multitude” remained
far away from its gunfire-
on the couch eating dinner.