I awoke this December morning shaky with your name still on my lips...
Your face in my mind as I awoke from one of my short dreamland trips..
My slumber reminds me of how I miss you so...
and makes me sometimes wish, that you didn't go...
I know that what you're doing is real and true...
For, we are the many and you are the few...
You're now over ten thousand miles away...
Protecting our freedom on this very day...
My prayers for your safety echo nightly..
and I have only idea's of what you have to see...
The horrors of war... The spoils of this land...
Horrors that we back at home, just can't understand...
The death and disease running around rampant..
and all the things you want to do, and just can't,,,
All the pain and suffering you have to bear witness..
While you have to shovel out death like it's a business...
With all the twisted metal and the smell of burning flesh...
Getting your four hour sleep to help you forget and refresh...
Having to Clean the sand from out of your body and mouth...
and hopping in the APC and heading for clicks due south...
The morning chain gun barrage at some local terrorist rebels...
Finding the dead children and having to get the shovels..
Filling sandbags and setting up shop to protect the next watch
and all the checks on your body to find a biological blotch...

I prey for you my brothers and hope fate is willing
that someday there will be an end to all this killing..
A stop to the master plan of terror and petty war...
where no one will have to kill the children anymore...
A place where, freedom is known to us all...
after you've done your duty and answered that call..
The call to protect us and to offer yourself to the cause...
and for you my brother... I take this moment and pause..
For I prey to fate, not to God, since he's on both lines..
I prey that fate will let you slide by unscathed by the signs...
Signs of war, signs of mental anguish...
So for you my brothers and sisters, I make a wish...
I wish for you're safety, over all else...
and wish I could be there to help you myself.

12/18/2001

Posted on 12/18/2001
Copyright © 2025 Aaron Howard