Says He Was In Falluja Poem by Jeffrey Tillery

Dear God if you can hear me please look down and help that kid
No one should have the memory of the things he said he did

Could have been the whiskey talking but the eyes made words ring true
And I just sat there listening, it was all that I could do

After graduating Yale he decided to enlist
Then he told an awful tale, drawn in as I got the gist

He talked about Falluja, he's surprised that he survived
Now he's haunted by the nightmare, how he ended twenty lives

In his heart he's not the killer that he was trained to be
But in the raging storm of battle, he met the savagery

Some things you can't un-see

Alone at the bar for his birthday, he's just 26 years old
Wants to be a teacher someday, I can't see him fit the mold

Woke up late and had a speedball, leaning hard toward the brink
I don't to speed his freefall, I can't buy this kid a drink

An empty smile is on his face, drug and alcohol induced
And a dose of false bravado, things he needs to make it through

I have a kid his age and I wonder how that it would be
To be the father of that wreckage, but for the grace of god goes me

He doesn't want thanks for his service and it's time for me to leave
I feel him lean into my hug, with his suffering soul I grieve

So Dear God if you are listening, while I need stuff for myself
That can all take a back burner, Dear God send that kid some help