November 11, 2006 GOD BLESS THOSE WHO SERVE

Every war must be our last, must be the final test of strength and will

And yet again midst disagreements men still take up arms and mount their hill.

With each new conflict weaponry evolves piling horror upon horror.

And at each ghastly end we reevaluate the loss and senselessness of war.

There are things worthy of the fight.  Each man must settle then his mind and heart

And know beyond a doubt if work and prayer or leaving home and bearing arms should be his part.



Long years ago, my father fought his fight on islands and on foreign ground

While those who history still calls tyrants faced an end that brought their efforts down.

And many of my friends went off to struggle in a war that knew no victory

A number of them struggle still and fight a war within an unkind memory.

Today my nephews live and serve a place of heat and wind and storms of sand

Sometimes the end seems further than it was years past when all of this began.



I read a journal of a man commissioned to record on film the civil war

He joined the fight excited by a job he’d do that never had been done before.

Hist’ry in the making yet so soon he lost his zeal and innocence

The overwhelming conflict fought by friends and brothers came to make no sense.

And though he thought it right to wage and win the battles and the war.

His final entry spoke of hope that man would learn to live in peace and fight no more.  DW'06



One of the most honorable men I have known was my father, a highly decorated soldier from World War II.  As I look at his medals and mementos, I am reminded that he never spoke of the war.  He spoke of the children in that foreign land.  He spoke of the men and their antics aboard ship.  He spoke of his days in basic and his time as a drill sergeant.  He never spoke of what the medals were given for, though at times I saw him looking at them privately with sadness in his eyes.  Only recently have I learned of the horrors he personally had to face in his service.  My heart broke for this man I still love dearly though he had departed this earth.



I suppose that man will always wage war, justly or unjustly.  Sometimes the decisions have nothing to do with the men who fight or loose their lives and yet as soldiers they serve without reserve as they are commissioned.  We must always be proud of the men and women who serve honestly, doing the best job they can under the circumstance they are given. 



God bless those who have served and who still serve our country in the military.