Barbed Wire
Barbed wire seems a 'thorny' subject on which to opine,
But there arose a need for such for people and beasts to confine!
Cowpokes cussed as they worked with it mutilating their hands.
Sheepherders fussed with cattlemen as it spread across their lands!
'Tis said back in 1874 Joseph Glidden, who 'bristled' with the idea,
Was awarded a patent for barbed wire to provide a cure-all panacea!
Split-rail fencing to outline boundaries was rapidly becoming passe',
To keep neighbors' straying goats, horses and other critters at bay!
Sheriffs found barbed wire handy to enforce a judge's firm dictates,
To confine hoss thieves, cattle rustlers and other such reprobates!
Inmates trying to scamper through the wire were apt to rip their pants,
Or worse, might end up in 'boot hill', caught trying to scale the fence!
Alas, sinister uses for barbed wire were found beyond bucolic meadowlands.
'Twas used to enslave thousands of innocent souls behind its menacing strands.
Thousands of men, women and children were consigned to death at Dachau,
Triblinka, Buchenwald, Ravensbruck and Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Among its many other diverse uses it has even marched off to wars,
To protect gallant American soldiers on far too many alien shores.
Mister Joseph Glidden was doing mankind a great favor, he thought.
Were he alive today he might say, "My gawd, what hath I wrought!"
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
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