The Soldier Poem by That Boy

It’s nineteen thirty three.
Some lads, a gang of three,
Walking to the office
To buy their liberty.

They signed the page.
They were insecure.
They were underage.
They were immature.

“You’ll get a medal, get a pension,
See the world, get money too.
Just a few years in the army.
Not to do it you’d be a fool.

The crowds around will gather.
All waving you good-bye.
Mum and Dad wait anxiously
With a tear in their eye.

Joining the army’s great at first,
As you march around and run.
Saluting all the generals
Whilst handling a gun.

The time soon came to go out field,
And climb over the edge.
With only a gun, they had no shield.
Other than a pot-hole or a wedge.

They ventured into no-man’s-land,
As their dads had done before.
Came back to base with a broken hand
And some blood and lots of gore.

The underage lad was still alive.
An unhappy year in.
He no longer did the waltz or jive.
And his spirit wearing thin.

The day of battle came again.
The lad now seventeen.
All his friends have died in vain,
Since the time he was fifteen.

“C’mon, get up, it’s battle time.”
Said the colonel in the camp.
It was the same old pantomime.
Acting the joker in the damp.

Before they knew it, they’re on the front.
Shooting Germans down.
Some Englishmen were killed again,
Caught serving the country’s crown.

Screams of death sang like quires.
And the shooting carried on.
Bombs came down and rose as fires.
But the killing carried on.

The young lad in the midst of the action.
Shooting as he ran.
Why did the war bring to him attraction?
Now he’s by the German clan.

So the underage boy turns and runs,
Through the action and the fright.
Gets killed, shot down, by German guns.
And never got back that night.