A War Hero Poem by Francis Duggan

The band it was playing 'Advance Australia Fair'
And balloons were floating in the balmy Summer air
And the recently returned war hero led the big street parade
Where the gunfire rang loud a name for himself he had made.

He returned a hero as the toast of his Hometown
And in his honour on the main street the band played up and down
But that is going back some five years from today
Now all is so very quiet where he does lay.

He was raised by his mother never knew his dad
Who left them for another when he was a very young lad
In raising him on her own such a fine job she done
And she felt so happy for and proud of her son.

Her brave son was gentle, sensitive and kind
But what he had seen in war began to prey on his mind
He turned to alcohol to ease his mental pain
But his terrible memories with him did remain.

One morning his mother found him dead on his bed
From alcohol poisoning it has been said
The reaper had claimed the life from him in the dead of the night
Survival for him had proved too big a fight.

He had proven himself in a war far away
But all is peaceful and quiet where he now lay
his mother is left for to bear her sorrow's cross
And 'til the day she die she will mourn her loss.