Can Someone Tell Me Why by Shiloh

As his eyelids lower for the last time,
sealing out the world as he knows it,
closing off the light of day from his dimming vision,
he again feels the excruciating, ungodly pain,
and experiences, just momentarily,
the frightening realization that he is
but a breath away from death...
and all he wants at this moment,
more than anything he has ever wanted in his lifetime,
is to be held, one last time, by his mother,
as she used to do when he was a child,
and he was hurt with a skinned knee
and frightened at the pain and sting...
But that was not to be this day.

He has died in a foreign land,
for no other reason than that someone
had placed a bomb next to the roadway,
and his vehicle was there when it blew up.

His family and friends
will gather at the funeral home,
at the cemetery,
and he will be given military honors,
by the VFW or American Legion,
complete with Taps being played
and salutes rendered,
and a flag folded
and given to his next of kin.

On birthdays and holidays
and anniversaries,
his mother, his father,
his brothers or sisters,
or even his wife,
or his children,
will remember him...

And they will say that he died
Serving His Country...
Protecting His Country...
and For The American Way Of Life...
because that is all they have now,--
they have no other way to explain
or accept what happened to him.

The Government, the Military,
has given them the phrases
to make it feel a bit less painful...
He died for a reason, they tell the family...
But can anyone tell me what that reason was?

shiloh (66.24.112.118) -- Saturday, November 10 2007, 08:42 am

to all who may find this not to their liking...
no disprespect to those who serve, those who have been in harm's way, those who have paid with wounds both physical and mental, or those who have paid with the ultimate and final payment... it is not intended to belittle their deeds - it is intended to make people think, and possibly to try to do something about the mindset of those in political power who feel that the serviceman and servicewoman are pawns on their own personal chessboards... too many in the positions of those who make decisions have lost touch with the ones they send in harm's way. This bothers me a lot.

Houston Smith (98.169.238.82) -- Friday, November 29 2013, 12:56 am

Shiloh, Thanks
Shiloh, thank you for your ability to express & articulate, what I feel(many times) in poetry. From one Veteran to another, thank you. Scouts Out!!!

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