Thieves* Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

Do you perform, my well-armed friends,
a certain service for the folks back home?
Perhaps you're chosen just to make amends
in foreign lands from Timbuktu to Rome?

They call you servicemen, not soldiers bearing arms,
and if a bullet finds its way to knock you down,
they use endearing terms and state-owned charms
as if you FELL because you're such a clown.

I'll call you killers though, because you do take lives,
you murder other men and celebrate,
then send your letters home to fretting wives
about the latest and the current state.

Thou shalt not kill, is part of what your kind believes,
yet this is waived if there is hate or foreign oil,
you sneak into their land like midnight thieves
and keep the pride and righteousness well on the boil.