Ask The Soldier

Deborah Venable

©2006

 

Ask the soldier how he feels

When the bell of freedom peals,

When he volunteers to go

And defend against the foe.

Ask the soldier how he feels

When the politicians’ deals

Tie his hands and make him ask

Why he’s there to do a task.

Ask the soldier how he feels

When a wound that never heals

Throbs with never ending pain

And it drives good men insane.

Ask the soldier how he feels

When the court of justice wheels

Turn against his smallest sin

And the good can never win.

 

Ask the soldier, if you dare,

If his countrymen should care

How he does the task at hand

In that tired unfriendly land.

Ask the soldier, if you dare,

How he lives while he is there

With a sense of grave alarm,

Under constant threat of harm.

Ask the soldier, if you dare,

Why the oath he has to swear

Has a meaning that he knows

Goes beyond the status quos.

Ask the soldier, if you dare,

If he thinks that life is fair

To the family that he leaves

Or the hell that he receives.

 

Ask the soldier why he fights

For our ever-waning rights

When it seems too few here care

That he does his duty there.

Ask the soldier why he fights

As he stands the sleepless nights

So that we may never know

The fears he cannot show.

Ask the soldier why he fights

For the weak in all their plights,

When he could ignore the call

And never fight at all.

Ask the soldier why he fights,

In traditions of the knights,

Who defended, then, a land

That would one day cease to stand.

 

Ask the soldier how he feels

As the politicians’ deals

Send him off to fight a war

Misnamed “conflict” more and more.

Ask the soldier how he feels

As opinion clearly seals

His fate to lose or die -

Betray his honor with a lie.

Ask the soldier how he feels

As he bows his head and kneels

By his fallen buddy, who

Has a child he never knew.

Ask the soldier how he feels

When the politicians’ deals

Fail to give him what he needs

To accomplish all their deeds.

 

Ask the soldier and you’ll know

Why he volunteers to go

When the land he loves becomes

A target for the bums.

Ask the soldier and you’ll know

When the tears begin to flow

That he knows what must be done

And the “conflict” must be won.

Ask the soldier and you’ll know

That the winds of war still blow

Over every peaceful land

Which refuse to take a stand.

Ask the soldier and you’ll know

That freedom’s stars still glow

Where star spangled banners wave

O’er the land of the free, BECAUSE of the brave.

 

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