War Poem by Luke Easter

Well I’ll be damned,
Never thought I’d see the day,
As a Master Sergeant in the war,
The whole company blown away.

Coming back from a meeting,
At the battalion H.Q.,
With Lieutenant Colonel Howard,
Driving the Jeep was Corporal Matthew.

Less than a click from the compound,
“Incoming, incoming, ” was the battle cry,
After the enemies ruthless motor barrage,
We were the only two who didn’t die.

Emerged without as much as a single scratch,
Bodies & limbs scattered everywhere, imagine that,
A surprise attack that lasted less than ten,
Wiped out more than three hundred & twenty men.

With just the radio salvaged from the jeep,
We hurriedly scrambled to get back on our feet,
Not yet dawn as we peered from behind a cloud of dust,
Now more determined than ever, just the two of us.

The Light Bird was on the radio to call it in,
Neither of us knew the exact number of men,
As the smoke cleared we could see the enemy location,
Peering from binoculars on a hill, checking the devastation.

With a Navy gun ship forty miles off shore in the bay,
Howard calls in a strike before night gives over to day,
Intently I gaze at the mountain over his left shoulder,
In just a matter of five more minutes it will all be over.

Boom! The first blast explodes, now who’s the hero?
Not quite on target “add half a click & right five zero”,
Bam! There’s another one, that’s it, fire for effect,
How does it feel to be in shrapnel up to your neck?

Day in and day out there is more or less to do,
Hope the folks back home appreciate what we go through,
The battlefield is not made of domestic stress and strife,
War is more than a job it’s an entirely new way of life.

Kill or be killed we don’t get to turn and walk away,
You and the adversary both won’t live to see another day,
This time around it’s my sad story to tell,
There’s no other way to relay it War is really hell.

Even the bible speaks of war in the Old Testament,
But with so many protest marches people seem to forget,
War and rumors of war forever in the boat without a paddle,
Armageddon is just around the corner for one last battle.