On Veterans Day 2014
Hot led balls from volleys of musket fire rip through the
lines,
men fall on either side, some scream at the searing pain,
cannonballs tear arms and legs from bodies,
faces you know vaporize, still you struggle on,
across battlefields, through bayous, across plains and
deserts,
freedom secured here, now go, into tropical mush
where malaria rises like steam, out across the world,
where screaming men thrust steel into your hearts,
cavalry charges give way to rolling tanks, rolling
thunder
and thunder from the skies, death from above and
death from the juggernauts at sea, defiant, adamant,
you own the waves, the air, the land, in the name of
hope,
freedom, of the people, by the people, for the people,
don't lose hope when the people don't remember,
they do, some do, enough to stand up, salute,
enough to shake your hand and say thank you.
Robert L. Vogel
Knoxville, Veterans' Day 2014
