The Battle That Rages On Poem by david lessard

We sent them overseas with rations and smokes. Nineteen forty-two.
We didn't see any harm in it, smoking was the thing to do.
They came back, addicted to the weed, their battle never ended, until
their face turned blue.
Invisible bullets, inhaled into the respiratory tract. Everyone was doing it, the jitterbug and the smoking.
The war went unannounced until much later. Then we knew...the nicotine wasn't joking.
The assault began in earnest, against this foe. We were advised to quit, any way we could...
After years and years of smoking, they said stop; .it wasn't easy, it was hard, but we said we would.
And some died in the fighting, it was way too long a haul, no medals
were handed out, no praises sung;
We were in a battle that was never over, never done...the victims were
male and female...the winner...a dying lung.
The war is far from over, it's being fought today. The smoking's caused us all to rust;
The ranks of men and women are falling still,
corpses of a sinful pleasure, returning to the dust.